Vol. 2, Issue 8 - Feb. 25, 2016

FEB. 25, 2016 KNOXMERCURY.COM

HAVE YOU SEEN SOME ART TODAY? V.

2 / N.8

The Magnificent Seven

In the middle of the 20th century, seven local artists brought modernism to Knoxville.

Now their work is helping the Knoxville Museum of Art find its way into the future.

BY MATTHEW EVERETT

NEWS

City Attempts to Strike a Balance with New Food Truck Regulations

JACK NEELY

Searching for Institutions in the Ever-Changing Old City

CLASSICAL MUSIC

Knoxville Opera Brings Back the Candy with ‘Hansel and Gretel’

OUTSIDE INSIDER

New Column: How to Explore the Knoxville Area’s Great Outdoors

A RED AG TOR VIC

KELLELY JOL

ON AARTRACY

PAUL BREWSTE R

OX LE I F

IE L R Z CHA LUT J STUOG MP ERS

S LIE BIL ILL CH

BLACK ATTICUS

MARILYN KALLET

BAK ERI ER CK

JONATHANN SEXTO

LIAM HYS JULI EN KNOXVILLE MERCURY February 25, 2016

ER AK B CK ERI

Live from the Bijou Theatre Saturday, March 5 • 1 p.m. - 8 p.m. $10 suggested donation Broadcast live on WDVX.com/89.9 FM

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Feb. 25, 2016 Volume 02 / Issue 08 knoxmercury.com

CONTENTS

“If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.” —Vincent Van Gogh

NEWS

8 Mobile Dining

14 The Magnificent 7

Maneuvers

COVER STORY

The Knoxville Seven were among the first modern artists in East Tennessee. Their collaborations in the late 1950s and early ’60s invigorated Knoxville during a mid-century cultural drought and brought credibility to the University of Tennessee’s new art department.

Now, more than 50 years later, the Knoxville Museum of Art has made the Knoxville Seven suddenly and startlingly relevant again. Its new show not only highlights a neglected period in Knoxville’s art history, it’s also the culmination of the museum’s nearly decade-long quest to assert itself as the champion of East Tennessee art. Matthew Everett gives us the big picture.

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DEPARTMENTS

OPINION

A&E

4 6

8

22

38

Letters to the Editor Howdy Start Here: Roadside Sketches by Andrew Gresham, Believe it or Knox!, Public Affairs, Quote Factory ’Bye Finish There: Restless Native by Chris Wohlwend, Crooked Street Crossword by Ian Blackburn and Jack Neely, Spirit of the Staircase by Matthew Foltz-Gray

10

Scruffy Citizen Jack Neely tries to track down lasting institutions in the everchanging Old City.

Perspectives Joe Sullivan looks at the potential for new-arena sticker shock if the city tries to replace the Civic Coliseum.

23 24 25

By most accounts, the city of Knoxville’s approach to managing food trucks has worked out just fine thus far. Since launching a pilot program nearly two years ago, city officials say they haven’t received a single complaint or heard any blowback from downtown restaurants near so-called “Mobile Food Vendor Zones.” But now, as the city looks to put in place permanent guidelines, some key changes included in its draft ordinance have drawn criticism from neighborhood advocates and business owners who see the potential for conflict down the road. Clay Duda reports.

CALENDAR Program Notes: The complete Knoxville Stomp lineup.

Shelf Life: Chris Barrett reveals a new music streaming service—the Knox County Public Library website.

Classical Music: Alan Sherrod previews Knoxville Opera’s Hansel and Gretel.

Movies: Lee Gardner examines Khalik Allah’s experimental documentary Field Niggas.

26

Spotlights: Kurt Vile and the Violators, Kevin Gates, Clarence Brown Theatre’s A Lesson Before Dying

OUTDOORS

36

Outside Insider Kim Trevathan launches a new column on how to explore the Knoxville area’s great outdoors.

February 25, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 3

LETTERS Delivering Fine Journalism Since 2015

STREETSCAPE SUPPORT

East Knoxville is a great place to live, and the Magnolia Avenue Streetscapes Project will make it better by making the streetscape more attractive and pedestrian-friendly, which would help bring investment into the area. The officers and board of directors of the Parkridge Community Organization have gone on record in support of the Magnolia Avenue upgrade project in letters to city government officials dated Feb. 5, 2016, that are posted on numbered pages 26-27 (document pages 31-32) of the city project comments webpage at knoxvilletn.gov.

The project has been a regular item on our monthly agenda for the past year, and from time to time for years before that, as a way of keeping our members informed about what was happening. The sense of the membership has always been in strong support of the effort, most recently by our letter to city government receiving a unanimous vote by our officers and board, all of whom live in Parkridge.

Accordingly, the recent Mercury article about the Magnolia Avenue upgrade [“East Knoxville Residents Protest Potential Displacement by Magnolia Avenue Streetscaping Plan,” online news feature by McCord Pagan, Feb. 5, 2016] came across as a bit one-sided. Follow-up articles should include residents and business owners who live in the area to be affected who support the project, and a perhaps more thorough review of the project history. To my understanding, the plans for the Magnolia Avenue upgrade have been moving forward for quite a few years with no major concerns raised until quite recently.

The statement that the plan was rejected by the neighborhood when it was fi rst proposed is news to those of us who live here and have been tracking the project for years. I would recommend checking such statements with city government officials should a follow-up piece be written.

The Parkridge Community Organization is a nonprofit group committed to the well-being of the 4

KNOXVILLE MERCURY February 25, 2016

Parkridge neighborhood in Knoxville, Tenn. Our members are proud of the historic character and diversified population of our neighborhood, and want to see it become an even better place to live. Our organization holds an annual historic home tour, has supported the 6th Avenue Mural project and the design study for the 1500 block of Washington Avenue, recently placed historic street signs in the neighborhood, and regularly hosts a water stop for the Knoxville Marathon at Caswell Park. We maintain a strong interest in reducing neighborhood blight and crime, facilitating traffic calming, historic preservation, and supporting the establishment of local shopping for our residents. Our meetings are open to the public and are held the fi rst Monday evening of each month at 6:30 p.m. at the Cansler Family YMCA. We appreciate the fact that the city is considering devoting appreciable time and resources to our area, and look forward to having continued input into the project. On behalf of the Parkridge Community Organization, I am:

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR GUIDELINES

• Letter submissions should include a verifiable name, address, and phone number.

We do not print anonymous letters.

• We much prefer letters that address issues that pertain specifically to Knoxville or to stories we’ve published.

• We don’t publish letters about personal disputes or how you didn’t like your waiter at that restaurant.

• Letters are usually published in the order that we receive them.

Send your letters to: Our Dear Editor Knoxville Mercury 706 Walnut St., Suite 404 Knoxville, TN 37920 Send an email to: editor@knoxmercury.com Or message us at: facebook.com/knoxmercury

EDITORIAL EDITOR Coury Turczyn coury@knoxmercury.com SENIOR EDITOR Matthew Everett matthew@knoxmercury.com CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Jack Neely jack@knoxhistoryproject.org STAFF WRITERS S. Heather Duncan heather@knoxmercury.com Clay Duda clay@knoxmercury.com CONTRIBUTORS

Chris Barrett Ian Blackburn Patrice Cole Eric Dawson George Dodds Lee Gardner Mike Gibson Carey Hodges Nick Huinker Donna Johnson

Rose Kennedy Dennis Perkins Stephanie Piper Ryan Reed Eleanor Scott Alan Sherrod April Snellings Joe Sullivan Kim Trevathan Chris Wohlwend

INTERNS

Hannah Hunnicutt Kevin Ridder

DESIGN ART DIRECTOR Tricia Bateman tricia@knoxmercury.com GRAPHIC DESIGNERS

Charlie Finch Corey McPherson CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

David Luttrell Shawn Poynter Justin Fee Tyler Oxendine CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATORS

Ben Adams Matthew Foltz-Gray

ADVERTISING PUBLISHER & DIRECTOR OF SALES Charlie Vogel charlie@knoxmercury.com SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Scott Hamstead scott@knoxmercury.com Stacey Pastor stacey@knoxmercury.com

David G. Anderson President, Parkridge Community Organization Knoxville

BUSINESS BUSINESS MANAGER Scott Dickey scott.dickey@knoxmercury.com

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 706 Walnut St., Suite 404, Knoxville, Tenn. 37902 knoxmercury.com • 865-313-2059

MORE DISENFRANCHISED VOTERS

The recent New Hampshire Democratic primary sums up the statement, “Democratic primary voters only pick a candidate, leaving it to party officials to select the delegates.” [“Ballot Imbalance,” Perspectives by Joe Sullivan, Feb. 11, 2016] Bernie received far more individual votes than Hillary, but Hillary managed to somehow steal a win.

Seems Democrat super delegates have more say than individual voters do. That’s a perfect example of “Ballot Imbalance” and disenfranchised voters.

William Hall Knoxville

THANK YOU, SUPPORTERS!

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR & PRESS RELEASES editor@knoxmercury.com CALENDAR SUBMISSIONS calendar@knoxmercury.com SALES QUERIES sales@knoxmercury.com DISTRIBUTION distribution@knoxmercury.com

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Terry Hummel Joe Sullivan Jack Neely Coury Turczyn Charlie Vogel The Knoxville Mercury is an independent weekly news magazine devoted to informing and connecting Knoxville’s many different communities. It is a taxable, not-for-profit company governed by the Knoxville History Project, a non-profit organization devoted to exploring, disseminating, and celebrating Knoxville’s unique cultural heritage. It publishes 25,000 copies per week, available free of charge, limited to one copy per reader. © 2016 The Knoxville Mercury

February 25, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 5

Illustration by Ben Adams

HOWDY

Believe It or Knox!

BY Z. HERACLITUS KNOX Summit Hill Drive is named for Summit Hill, the highest elevation downtown, which it partly traverses. Summit Hill was originally known as Gallows Hill! Before the Civil War, it was a location for hangings of convicted murderers.

Roadside Sketches by Andrew Gresham (agreshamphoto.com)

QUOTE FACTORY “ Résumé doesn’t mean anything in today’s environment.”

—Gov. Bill Haslam in a Feb. 19 story in Politico about Donald Trump’s success as a Republican candidate for president despite his complete lack of governing experience or knowledge of policy issues. “We’re in a world right now where well said means more than well done.”

PUBLIC AFFAIRS

Jackson Avenue, famous for its Victorian buildings and worn remnants of brick pavement, IS ONE OF THE NEWEST STREETS IN DOWNTOWN KNOXVILLE! For many years its development was blocked by the existence of a large sawmill and lumber products business, Burr & Terry, which covered most of the western half of the district now known as the Old City. It was completed around 1888—by then, Knoxville’s street grid was almost a century old!

The Sequoyah Hills peninsula is still known to industrial riverboatmen by its original name: “Looney’s Bend”!

2/26 FRIENDS OF LITERACY’S BACHELOR 2/27 TENNESSEE WINTER BEER FEST AUCTION

2/28 FUNDRAISER: HOLLYWOOD’S NIGHT 2/29 MEETING: FIVE POINTS MASTER PLAN OUT

6:30-10:30 p.m., Crowne Plaza Downtown. $50-$70.

Men for sale! Well, it’s for a good cause: literacy and education programs for adults in Knox County. Doors open for VIP ticket-holders at 6:30 p.m.; general admission starts at 7:30 p.m. Enjoy food, cash bar, and mingling with the Guys That Give bachelors for 30 minutes before the auction begins at 8 p.m. Info: friendsofliteracy.org

7 p.m., Regal Riviera 8 (510 S. Gay St.). $35.

Here’s an Oscar party that takes things up a notch: Regal Entertainment will be showing the Academy Awards on the big screen in this fundraiser for Variety – The Children’s Charity and its program to provide assistance to children with mobility concerns. Plus: food, drink, and a red carpet.

FRIDAY

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SATURDAY

3-8 p.m., The Carriage House (8310 TN-73, Townsend). $30-$60.

If you want to get a jump on beer-festival season, then the fifth-annual Tennessee Winter Beer Fest has you covered with a long list of local and regional craft brewers. The event is a fundraiser for New Hope Blount County Children’s Advocacy Center.

Info: tennesseewinterbeerfest.com.

SUNDAY

MONDAY

5:30-7:30 p.m., Walter P. Taylor Boys and Girls Club (317 McConnell St.). Free.

Knoxville’s Community Development Corp. will be discussing the next phases of its Five Points Master Plan. They will also be presenting final renderings of the $10 million senior housing development to be constructed at the corner of Bethel Avenue and McConnell Street.

Magnolia Avenue Today Magnolia Avenue has hundreds of magnolia trees, but it was named for a woman.

Magnolia Bryan Branner (1829-1907) was originally from Georgia, but moved to Knoxville with her husband, George Branner, a prosperous plantation owner, just before the Civil War. They settled along First Creek.

Their son, H. Bryan Branner, became mayor of Knoxville in 1880.

Knoxville’s first automobile races—and, in 1911 the first landing of an airplane in Knoxville.

Caswell Park was for about 80 years the home of professional baseball in Knoxville.

The Knoxville Zoo, first launched near Magnolia in the 1940s, remains one of Knoxville’s best-known attractions today.

When it was completed in 1888, Magnolia Avenue was a broad, modern boulevard, a clean, quiet option to living in dirty, crowded downtown Knoxville.

For a century, Magnolia was more familiar to Knoxvillians than Kingston Pike was. It was the home of the region’s first Catholic high school. It was the address of the Park Theater, which remained one of Knoxville’s most popular movie theaters from the 1940s to the 1970s, showing many first-run movies even before the bigger theaters did. It was the location one of the region’s biggest bread bakeries, Swan’s—and, in the 1940s, of the Hartman Beverage Co., at the time it introduced a new soft drink called Mountain Dew.

Magnolia Branner was then a widow, the primary resident of a house near what’s now the campus of Pellissippi State. She outlived her husband by 23 years, and watched the growth of the street named for her.

Originally, Magnolia was an extension of Park Street, an older downtown street. It became Magnolia only after it crossed First Creek. After World War I, Park Street became Magnolia, too.

Magnolia led to the popular new destination, Chilhowee Park.

The Negro Building, one of several pavilions at the 1913 National ConservationExposition at Chilhowee Park, was built by Knoxville blacks to demonstrate African-American experience and achievement. After the fair was over, though, blacks were allowed at Chilhowee Park only one day a year.

Image courtesy of the Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection. http://cmdc.knoxlib.org

Originally served by a small steam-driven train, Magnolia saw the first electric streetcar ever built in East Tennessee.

William Gibbs McAdoo (who later became U.S. Secretary of the Treasury) built that line along Magnolia in 1890, to the park.

Most Knoxvillians visited Chilhowee Park, and became familiar with Magnolia. Much of America saw Magnolia early in the century, when Chilhowee Park was the site of several major expositions, including the National Conservation Exposition of 1913, which drew one million people from across the country. Most of those visitors arrived on the Magnolia streetcar.

That exposition included a pavilion called the Negro Building, established

by Knoxville blacks, and black people were part of the daily crowds. However, blacks were later banned from visiting the park except during fairs, and on one day a year—Aug. 8, which was celebrated as Emancipation Day. Chilhowee Park remained as an amusement park, with permanent rides and arcades, and as a setting for annual fairs. The Magnolia corridor developed a reputation for fun, and spawned other attractions, like Cal Johnson’s Racetrack, built and owned by a man raised to be a slave. It hosted horse races,

Magnolia also attracted numerous popular restaurants, especially those specializing in “fun” food, like pizza, barbecue, hot dogs, and ice cream.

In the 1950s, Knoxville leaders took advantage of a federal initiative called Urban Renewal to clear slums. At the time, thousands of people, most but not all of them black, lived in desperate conditions, many without electricity or plumbing, in a large area of several hundred acres on the east side of downtown. Urban Renewal removed thousands of residences, many of them dangerous slums, but many of them well-kept homes. Some of those evicted moved into new housing projects. Many others moved into formerly white neighborhoods of East Knoxville. When public housing was planned for East Knoxville, many white families left the area for the new developments in West Knoxville. Blacks, many of whom had been evicted from traditional urban neighborhoods, moved in.

Although Magnolia as a business and residential street remained mostly white through the 1970s, it spawned several black-owned businesses and became increasingingly important to the displaced black community.

Today, the part of Magnolia being discussed for a major makeover is home to the Knoxville campus of Pellissippi State Community College, the Knoxville area’s public-television station, WETP-TV, and many other businesses.

Source: The Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection

The Knoxville History Project, a new nonprofit organization devoted to the promotion of and education about the history of Knoxville, presents this page each week to raise awareness of the themes, personalities, and stories of our unique city.

Learn more on www.facebook.com/knoxvillehistoryproject • email jack@knoxhistoryproject.org February 25, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 7

SCRUFFY CITIZEN

The Elusive Institution The unsettling context of a rediscovered rave review

BY JACK NEELY

I

was recently startled by a story I’d read before. It appeared in The New York Times in February 1999, 17 years ago this month. It was called “Notorious and Proud of It.” The byline belonged to Nancy Bearden Henderson, a Chattanooga-based writer who often writes about Atlanta. She was the one who called me back then, for some historical background on the Old City. She and I met at Sullivan’s Diner one sunny afternoon and talked about saloons and whorehouses and gunfights for an hour or two.

I wasn’t with her when she and her husband roamed around the neighborhood that evening. She found a few things I didn’t know about.

By then the Old City had been around, as an entity by that name, for 15 years or so, but it had never been singled out for such prominent press.

The story was a sensation in the neighborhood when it came out, photocopied on oversize sheets and taped on shop windows. The Old City was proud of its “Notorious and Proud of It” story.

Anyway, I didn’t think about that for years. While working on another project, I encountered that story online and reread it. Articles always look new when they’re online. When somebody finds something I wrote in the 1990s, they often respond to it assuming I wrote it yesterday. Henderson’s story was, exactly as I recalled it, a cheerful

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story, polite by Times standards. It could as easily have run in Southern Living. She liked the place, liked every place she dropped in on. She poked a little gentle fun here and there, but offered no criticism.

But I was struck by one very odd thing. The Old City still described online is a parallel-universe version of the Old City we know today. Or like the paradoxical landscape of a dream, where everything seems familiar, but diverges radically from reality. I reread it again, because I couldn’t quite believe it was true.

Not one of the places she recommends in her upbeat review is still in business. The ice-cream parlor my daughter and I used to frequent known as the Big Dipper; the historic space known as Patrick Sullivan’s Saloon, where groups angled for the corner window table to spend a Sunday afternoon; Sullivan’s Diner, where we met, which was a very different restaurant run by different folks; the capacious and trendy JFG Coffeehouse (“plank floors and brick walls and a backgammon table next to a huge assortment of glass-enclosed, made-from-scratch delicacies including cheesecakes and flaky apple streusel.”)

She also mentions Lucille’s, the wonderful restaurant where I could rarely afford to eat, but knew well as a lush late-night jazz club; the severely eccentric Tri-City Barber Shop, where

Walter, if he let you come in at all, would tell incredible tales; the JFG Coffee factory, where you could hear coffee beans rattle in the pipe that stretched overhead across the street; and Jackson Antique Marketplace and Big Don’s Elegant Junk, two very different emporiums of curiosities. All places that I remember fondly, but that aren’t there anymore.

She does briefly mention the Melting Pot, but just as the underground site of the already-defunct nightclub Ella Guru’s, which she had heard of. (The national fondue chain’s Knoxville location is now the Old City’s oldest restaurant.) And she described an exuberant sidewalk display at Big Don the Costumier.

That building’s been torn down, but Ramona is still in the neighborhood.

Just ahead of the bulldozers she moved around the corner, where she thrives, if a little less conspicuously than in the old days. Also, it might be splitting hairs a bit to say that 195 Degrees, which she does mention, isn’t still there. The place that opened as Java in 1991 became known as 195 Degrees for a couple of years in the late ’90s, and then it was Java again.

It’s had some ups and downs, and several changes of ownership, but is basically the same place. Lately I have a hard time finding a seat there.

Either it’s doing better than ever or the laptop era has given its customers a motive to camp out there all day.

She did not mention Barley’s, and that surprised me—until I realized Barley’s probably wasn’t there yet. An Asheville import in its earliest incarnation, I think it opened later that year.

That was just 17 years ago. In a lot of downtown neighborhoods in a lot of cities, you can return to favorite restaurants you first knew on a trip

with your grandparents or with a college chum. Bigger cities tend to nurture their oldest places.

Over the weekend I heard a radio story about the best food cities and how most of them have long traditions.

Galatoire’s in New Orleans, extolled in the story, has been at the same address for well over a century, keeping its lovable idiosyncrasies along with its reputation for rémoulade.

Despite an intervening flood, some fires, and a big wind or two, New Orleans still supports almost all the restaurants and bars I remember when I first beheld the place as an astonished teenager in 1977. Most of them haven’t even changed much.

A lot of the restaurants and bars that would be recommended in New York or Chicago or Boston or San Francisco might include the same ones recommended by travel writers 17 years ago or even 70 years ago. Old cities tend to stay recognizable. Why not Knoxville’s Old City?

And why not Knoxville? Suburban Knoxville has shed most of its decades-old institutions, too. Citywide, our oldest restaurants hark from the 1950s, the suburban postwar television parking-lot age: Rankin’s on North Central, the Freezo just down the street, and Long’s lunch counter on Kingston Pike.

We just don’t have multi-generational institutions. We’re fickle. None of us will live to see Knoxville with a restaurant that has the tradition of a Galatoire’s or an Antoine’s or a Commander’s Palace. That’s one thing we can’t create. We can only pick our best contenders, and support them in hopes that maybe our great-grandchildren will talk about how they’ve been coming there for generations. ◆

I reread it again, because I couldn’t quite believe it was true.

Not one of the places she recommends in her upbeat review is still in business.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: Attorney

Abraham Lincoln practiced law for nearly 25 years and became one of the most successful attorneys in Illinois prior to his political career. While most lawyers of his time studied under established lawyers in lieu of going to law school, Lincoln’s humble resources prevented him from doing so.

A Springfield attorney lent him the books necessary and the ambitious Lincoln taught himself the profession. In 1836 he was admitted to the bar in Illinois.

Lincoln started his career as a junior partner to his mentor John T. Stuart. While traveling from town to town, serving the Eighth District of Illinois, Lincoln was involved in both criminal and civil cases. He found the most success as a corporate attorney for the burgeoning railroads that crisscrossed the state.

While the law of the time was somewhat vague and often relied on juries to make interpretive decisions, Lincoln routinely used his keen logic, down-home relativity and rhetorical flourishes to sway juries. No case made that more apparent than the “Chicken Bone” case.

Lincoln served as defense attorney for two doctors facing a medical malpractice suit following a fire in a livery stable in Bloomington, Illinois.

Samuel Flemming suffered burns and two broken legs. The doctors set his legs with splints and when they were removed, they discovered that one was crooked and Flemming had a limp when he walked. Lincoln brought chicken bones into the courtroom to help defuse the charge of incompetence, illustrating to the jury that Fleming’s recovery was normal because bones become brittle with age. He also asked Fleming if he could walk. When Flemming replied that he could walk with a limp, Lincoln proclaimed, “Well, what I would advise you to do is get down on your knees and thank your Heavenly Father, and also these two doctors that you have any legs to stand on at all.”

Home to treasures like this Louis Banajo painting of “Lincoln, the Circuit Rider” and fragile documents from his legal practice, the Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum is located on the historic campus of Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, Tennessee. It houses one of the top five Lincoln and Civil War private collections in the world.

Free Admission Fridays and Saturdays in February.

Museum.LMUnet.edu

February 25, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 9

PERSPECTIVES

New-Arena Sticker Shock Can the city afford to add a new coliseum to an array of big projects?

BY JOE SULLIVAN

S

howing a lot of gumption, Mayor Madeline Rogero has been quick to support a consulting firm’s recommendation that the city build a glittering new 10,000-seat arena to replace its antiquated Civic Coliseum.

Yet while there is widespread agreement that something needs to be done, the consultant’s $141 million cost estimate for the replacement option that Rogero prefers has left several City Council members with a case of sticker shock. Unless other sources of funding can be identified, the bond issue needed to finance it would nearly double the city’s $170 million in presently outstanding debt.

And an estimated $10 million in annual debt service on such a bond issue could take a 23-cent increase in the city’s $2.72 property tax rate to cover it.

Such a prospect also raises the concern whether Rogero could be putting all of her second-term capital-improvement eggs in this one basket to the exclusion of other city needs.

Rogero predictably minimizes these concerns. “Don’t get fixated on a $141 million cost,” she tells me in an interview. “I’ve got one person who is knowledgeable who believes it could be done for $80 million.” While “there’s not going to be a big property tax increase” associated with it, she

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acknowledges that, “We need to have plans for funding it” and “I don’t have timeline for that. I’d hope to have a plan this year, but I don’t know about an adoption date.”

City Council would have to approve any such plan, and Council members whom I contacted foresee it taking longer. “I don’t think anyone anticipated how expensive it was going to be, and I believe that all we can do in the next two years is lay groundwork,” says Councilman Finbarr Saunders, who’s been a stanch supporter of the mayor.

Councilman Marshall Stair is more agnostic. “This is a huge undertaking, and it needs public support. But other than Ice Bear fans I don’t know who’s supporting it, and you can’t justify its cost as a hockey arena alone,” he says.

Rogero says she hasn’t considered looking to UT’s Thompson-Boling Arena to serve as an alternative venue for the large concerts and other non-athletic events the proposed 10,000-seat arena is intended to attract. The city’s consultant, Conventions, Sports and Leisure International, believes that an aesthetically pleasing new arena with more amenities and better acoustics than cavernous Thompson-Boling is more conducive to attracting more bookings. These amenities include the sale of alcoholic beverages, which UT

prohibits—a policy that isn’t likely to change anytime soon. But even with a projected doubling of attendance compared to the existing 6,700-seat coliseum, CSL still estimates that the new facility will sustain operating losses of close to $1 million a year, not counting debt service.

Come what may on the coliseum front, Rogero insists it won’t impinge on two other major city initiatives for which the groundwork has already been laid. Yet progress on both of these fronts is also moving slowly.

One is the former State Supreme Court site bounded by Henley and Locust that has sat idle for a decade.

Twice before the city has selected developers with ambitious plans for mixed-use projects on the site, but they both have come a cropper. Now, before issuing a Request For Proposal for yet another development proposal, the city is seeking a consultant to conduct “a marketing study for the site to assess its potential for mixed-use development,” which seems obvious. Then, after “a public process to discuss the property,” a city release says, “The goal is to issue an RFP in 2016 so that redevelopment of the site can begin as soon as possible.” But that selection timetable inherently means not before next year at the earliest.

Still longer lead times face commencement of any development of the burned-down McClung Warehouse site on Jackson Avenue that the city acquired in 2013 for $1.45 million. In this case, though, several public infrastructure projects represent prerequisites to private development of the 1.7-acre site. These include: • A $1.2 million streetscape on decrepit West Jackson between Gay and Broadway with a wider sidewalk, plantings, and new streetlights, on which work is due to start this spring.

• An $11 million replacement of the century-old ramps that lead up from Jackson to the Gay Street Viaduct from both the east and west.

This mostly federally funded project is now slated to get underway in the fall of 2017 and take about a year, during which time Jackson will be closed to through traffic.

• TDOT replacement of the Broadway Viaduct, which is due to start in 2016 and take about three years at a cost of $4.2 million. The McClung site will serve as a staging area for this project as well as the

Jackson ramp replacement.

“Realistically, we can’t begin redevelopment of the West Jackson Avenue site until these crucial infrastructure projects are finished,” the city’s director of redevelopment, Dawn Michelle Foster, states in a news release. Yet the intervening years would seem to be a fertile time for planning, including an oft-mentioned master plan and selection of a master developer to oversee what’s expected to be a multi-faceted, multi-stage development process.

The one selection the city has made so far is for yet another consultant to conduct yet another market study. In this case the report of the consultant, Annapolis-based Thomas Point Associates, is complete and contains some very interesting findings. Among them: It advises against the selection of a master developer and recommends instead that “an alternative, phased-development approach will be a better route for the city.” Under this approach, phase one would be a mixed-use development on the city’s surface parking lot just west of Gay Street consisting of a 500-space garage on the lower two levels, an upscale grocery store above it, and 200 residential units on two upper floors.

“We see the development of a mixed-use structure on the city parking lot as the opening project that could stand on its own and have a significant impact on the downtown,” the report states. “If it moved ahead on this one component, the City could proceed with the original developer or take a different route on a second and third phase depending on developer performance, market conditions, and other factors.”

So is a master developer still envisioned? The city’s communications manager, Eric Vreeland, responds that, “The city is definitely contemplating using a master developer on Jackson Avenue.” But it’s unclear when.

Whenever I begin to think that the city may be developmentally challenged, I remind myself of the masterful job that deputy to the mayor Bill Lyons did of guiding the Market Square redevelopment process some 15 years ago in his then capacity as chairman of KCDC. Then, too, there had been study after study and proposal after proposal going every which way. But Lyons stayed the course, and I’m glad he’s still around. ◆

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February 25, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 11

Patrons gather around the Savory and Sweet food truck during Open Streets Knoxville on October 25, 2015. The city is looking to put in place a permanent food truck ordinance, replacing a two-year pilot program.

Photo by Clay Duda

Mobile Dining Maneuvers City attempts to strike a careful balance with new food truck regulations

BY CLAY DUDA

B

y most accounts, the city of Knoxville’s approach to managing food trucks has worked out just fine thus far. Since launching a pilot program nearly two years ago, city officials say they haven’t received a single complaint or heard any blowback from downtown restaurants near so-called “Mobile Food Vendor Zones” where these freewheeling eateries are allowed to park and offer provisions during certain hours—an earlier point of controversy. But now, as the city looks to put in place permanent guidelines for managing this growing crowd of food truckers,

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KNOXVILLE MERCURY February 25, 2016

some key changes included in its draft ordinance have drawn criticism from neighborhood advocates and business owners who see the potential for conflict down the road.

The draft ordinance as written would open up more areas to food trucks, allowing them to set up shop on pretty much any property not zoned residential, provided they have permission and adhere to guidelines.

It would also increase the distance those trucks are required to maintain from property lines of residential-zoned areas, proposed at 100 feet compared to the current 50-foot

standard. It spells out in detail regulations for operating in city parks, hours of permitted operations at various locations, and a number of other specific do’s, don’ts, and don’t-evens. The draft ordinance totals 10 pages. City Council was set to take up the proposed ordinance during its March 1 meeting, but instead has opted to schedule a workshop March 24 to discuss the document.

“The two-year pilot program allowed us to see what was working well, and we don’t want to come up with something [an ordinance] that

would stop things from working well,” says Patricia Robledo, business liaison in the city’s Office of Business Support. “During the two years we gathered feedback from owners, the public, and brick-and-mortar restaurant owners. We’re the kind of administration that’s really open to entrepreneurship ideas, and this program sends the signal that we’re open for business and ideas.”

However, not all stakeholders like the ideas being presented in the draft ordinance. Food truck owners have organized meetings to discuss their opposition to particular points, and one bar owner has launched a change. org petition titled “Don’t limit food trucks at small businesses.” They contend that the setback requirements could cost them business and even prohibit food trucks from serving patrons at some establishments where they have operated without complaint under the pilot program. On the flip side, members of Community Forum, a local group focused on neighborhood issues, say the 100-foot restriction isn’t far enough if these culinary coaches are going to be allowed to set up on-site smokers and generators.

“It seems the biggest contention is that they’re trying to impose a 100-feet rule from any residential area, and that doesn’t really work in Knoxville,” says Byron Sambat, who co-owns the Savory and Sweet food truck with his wife, Kiki. “We’ve always been opposed to that even since the start of the pilot program just because of the way Knoxville is laid out. It may work in a place like Nashville where they have a larger downtown area, but we have all the beer markets and things around here that are really close to residential areas.” That includes places like the Alliance Brewing Company and Trailhead Beer Market in South Knoxville, the Casual Pint in Fountain City, and the Bearden Beer Market, he says.

Fountain City Casual Pint owner Steve Brandon says the new ordinance would essentially bar food trucks from serving his business, a setup that has worked just fine under

“We’re not against food trucks, we just don’t think they belong everywhere.”

—LARRY SILVERSTEIN, Community Forum

the pilot program. That led him to launch a change.org petition last week opposing the 100-foot setback, which gathered about 500 signatures in the fi rst 48 hours before losing steam. (It was at 629 as of Tuesday.)

“This seems like a little bit of government overreach where people that may have never been to our neighborhood or never enjoyed a food truck are painting a broad stroke, and I really think it should be done on a case-by-case basis or variances should be allowed,” he says. “In my situation, we have a large retaining wall [between the bar and nearby residences], there are no noise issues, and the food trucks are usually done by 10 p.m. So it seems like it’s hurting small businesses with this one-sizefits-all approach.”

Robledo says the city upped the setback distance from 50 feet to 100 after hearing concerns from Community Forum in December; the group originally requested a 200-foot setback. The city has also made some other changes to the proposed ordinances at the group’s request, although it has refused to ban the use of meat smokers and will still allow food trucks to set up some seating arrangements, such as picnic tables.

“We’re not trying to stop food trucks and we’re not insisting on horrible restrictions that would stop them from doing their thing. We just think something throwing out a bunch of smoke right next to a house is not a good idea,” says Larry Silverstein, Community Forum’s secretary and treasurer. “We think that 100 feet from residential is still pretty darn close, especially if there are smokers.

If they don’t have smokers and they don’t have generators making a lot of noise, then that distance becomes less of a problem.”

The city has declined to regulate the use of smokers on the grounds of health or pollution, the main concerns cited in comments by Community Forum, noting that both the county and state exempt cooking operations from those standards. Silverstein says the city has been gracious, agreeing to meet with the group in January and making changes to the proposed ordinance based on its comments, but he still contends more should be done before things are fi nalized.

“We’re just trying to protect the people that would be impacted by it, and even if there haven’t been any complaints so far, it doesn’t mean there won’t be,” Silverstein says.

“We’re not against food trucks, we just don’t think they belong everywhere.”

The City Council has more than a few options when it finally weighs in on the matter—whenever that may be.

It was scheduled to review the draft ordinance back in December, but that was put on hold following comments and concerns from Community Forum.

Since then, the proposed regulations have undergone two revisions aimed at addressing the group’s concerns.

Councilmembers will likely hammer out the finer points of the draft ordinance during its workshop at 5:30 p.m. on March 24 in the City County Building’s Main Assembly Room at 400 Main St., but they could still make changes when it comes before the Council at a future date.

People on all sides say they’re being reasonable in their requests for revisions, and a number of them plan to speak before City Council during its March 1 meeting. If nothing else, folks say the longer review process has made more people in the community aware of the proposed regulations and how they might impact their lives and neighborhoods. ◆ February 25, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 13

The Magnificent Seven

In the middle of the 20th century, seven local artists brought modernism to Knoxville.

Now their work is helping the Knoxville Museum of Art find its way into the future.

BY MATTHEW EVERETT

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KNOXVILLE MERCURY February 25, 2016

If

“Black Cat” (circa 1957)

by Joanna Higgs Ross Courtesy of the Knoxville Museum of Art/ Cathy and Mark Hill

f you visit Knoxville Seven, the new exhibit at the Knoxville Museum of Art, you’ll almost certainly notice “Pop Goes My Easel.” Among the 70 or so pieces on display in KMA’s two ground-floor galleries— most of them abstract expressionist paintings and modernist landscapes—Carl Sublett’s 1963 painting stands out for its stark graphics, unusual technique, and charged political content.

“This is one of Carl’s masterpieces, from his relatively brief flirtation with pop art,” says Stephen Wicks, the museum’s curator, as he leads a private tour through the exhibit. “He makes clear reference to the fact that he’s looking at pop art. This is something I think is so great about this group— they’re aware of what’s happening in the broader world of contemporary art, but they never let their experimentations pull them away from who they are or where they’re working. They make direct references to Knoxville, as Sublett does here.”

According to Wicks, the painting, emblazoned with the words “LOOK

KNOXVILLE ALL AMERICA CITY” over three rough vertical red stripes and lines of tiny silhouetted heads, is a satirical political commentary on Knoxville in the early ’60s. In 1962, the city’s selection as one of Look magazine’s All American Cities had been met with protests from civil-rights activists, who carried placards reading “Theaters Segregated in All-America City” and “Make Knoxville a City for All Americans” in demonstrations on Gay Street and in front of the Knoxville Civic Coliseum.

Sublett’s “LOOK” can be read both as a reference to the magazine—it’s styled like the cover logo—and as an

imperative, exhorting viewers to open their eyes to injustice. The tiny heads, Wicks suggests, were probably taken from a portrait of Lenin on an earlier Look cover.

“What I see in this composition is Sublett, in a subtle way, making reference to racial problems and persecution, segregation, the sit-ins, a lot of protests that had happened,” Wicks says. “Carl’s painted this on the canvas in a way that looks like Warhol’s printed technique. It’s Carl, aware of whats going on, trying to bring some of that broader contemporary sensibility to his work but at the same time not losing sight that he’s a Knoxville artist and not losing sight of what’s happening right here, right now.”

Sublett and the six other artists who are featured in Knoxville Seven—Robert Birdwell, Richard Clarke, C. Kermit “Buck” Ewing,

Joanne Higgs Ross, Philip Nichols, and Walter Stevens—were among the first modern artists in East Tennessee. Their collaborations in the late 1950s and early ’60s invigorated Knoxville during a mid-century cultural drought and brought credibility to the University of Tennessee’s new art department. Now, more than 50 years later, KMA has made the Knoxville Seven suddenly and startlingly relevant again. Wicks’ show not only highlights a neglected period in Knoxville’s art history—it’s also the culmination of the museum’s nearly decade-long quest to assert itself as the champion of East Tennessee art.

“It tells us, here’s what we stand to gain if we champion avant-garde ideas and progressive ideas,” Wicks says. “They’re not scary, they’re not dangerous. In fact, they open up possibilities that are beneficial to the community.”

February 25, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 15

T

he Knoxville Seven was the invention of C. Kermit “Buck” Ewing, a painter, professor, and provocateur from Pittsburgh who came to Knoxville in 1948 as the first head of UT’s new art department.

That was just a year after John Gunther had described Knoxville as “the ugliest city I ever saw in America.” Knoxville was in the dumps—pollution, blue laws, and a declining population had turned a formerly cosmopolitan city on the river into a depressed backwater. But change was coming, and Ewing was both a beneficiary and a catalyst. The university’s rapid growth after World War II—it was one local institution that was thriving—prompted the administration to add art, theater, and music departments alongside more traditional and practical academic programs. Ewing joined a cohort of educated, well-traveled colleagues who were eager to shake things up. None of them were as qualified to do that as he was.

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KNOXVILLE MERCURY February 25, 2016

“Untitled (East Tennessee Marble Quarry)” (1963) by Richard Clarke Courtesy of the Knoxville Museum of Art/ the Sublett family

Ewing was a talented painter—his landscapes and abstractions range from charming to arresting, and he did some of the most daring work of any of the Knoxville Seven in the 1960s. But his lasting legacy is as a ringleader and shrewd administrator. He staged elaborate auctions and openings that drew attention from outside the usual circles, and he recruited talented young faculty members from around the country. Ewing spent almost 30 years fighting for a dedicated building for the art school; the 160,000-square-

“Ewing wanted to create a scene, not just an art department.”

—Eric Sublett

foot Art and Architecture Building was finally built in 1981, five years after Ewing’s death.

“Ewing wanted to create a scene, not just an art department,” says Eric Sublett, Carl Sublett’s son and an accomplished professional painter in his own right. “He wanted to always be bringing people in from everywhere else. His main thing was to create a cosmopolitan thing with people from all over. And he was basically trying to start this from nothing.”

By the late ’50s, Ewing had recruited the painter Walter Stevens, a graduate of the University of Illinois, and painter and printmaker Richard Clarke, from Indiana, to the faculty.

Carl Sublett was a commercial artist, doing advertising and newspaper work, before he joined the faculty; he shared a modernist sensibility with the others. He had moved to Bristol from Eastern Kentucky after World War II and came to Knoxville in 1954. The four of them often painted together and traveled to art fairs around the Southeast. Sublett’s house on Lake Avenue was a frequent gathering spot.

Clarke, Stevens, and Sublett were all interested in landscape painting— you can see the shapes and perspectives of quarries and beaches in even their most abstract paintings—and they liked to work outdoors together.

“They all went together out to the marble quarries,” Eric Sublett says.

“We went with the Clarkes to the Smoky Mountains a lot. We’d have picnics and my dad and Clarke would go down and paint around the river. We’d just kind of hang out but they were always talking shop, and I was always interested.”

Eventually, Robert Birdwell—the only East Tennessee native in the group—started showing his paintings with the group. Birdwell preferred urban landscapes to the quarries and mountains. Joanna Higgs Ross, the

first female graduate of UT’s art program, began exhibiting with the group as a graduate student and continued showing her work with them even after she moved back to Middle Tennessee in 1961. That’s also the year that Philip Nichols, a sculptor, joined the UT faculty and became the final member of the Knoxville Seven.

Under Ewing’s inspired leadership, the group took up the cause of modern art with almost evangelical enthusiasm. Even when the reviews weren’t positive—a 1963 News-Sentinel review put the word “art” in quotation marks, a not terribly subtle suggestion that whatever these modernist and contemporary pieces were, it was something besides art— the group was getting attention. They

won prizes at regional art fairs, sold paintings to collectors from around the country, and inspired a couple of generations of art students. They introduced Knoxville to modern art.

“Some of the things they did together were among the first abstract works of art in East Tennessee history,” Wicks says. “They were having these big lively events that helped shift the cultural spotlight back on the visual arts. All of a sudden you have this connection between Knoxville and the contemporary world of art because of the Knoxville Seven. They were teaching students and getting them excited about the possibility of something beyond academic figure drawing and figure painting.

“In many ways they changed forever the landscape.”

“Shift I” (1965)

by Walter Stevens Courtesy of the Knoxville Museum of Art/ University of Tennessee Ewing Gallery of Art and Architecture

February 25, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 17

W

“Sea Forest IV” (1960)

by Carl Sublett

“Fahrenheit” (1959)

by C. Kermit “Buck” Ewing

Courtesy of the Knoxville Museum of Art/ Eric Sublett

Courtesy of the Knoxville Museum of Art

icks was hired by KMA as its first full-time curator in 1990, the year the former Dulin Gallery collection moved into its grand new headquarters near World’s Fair Park and became the Knoxville Museum of Art. Wicks had graduated from UT and then earned a master’s degree in art history from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

There, Wicks had worked in the curatorial department of the Cleveland Museum of Art, a century-old institution with a $750 million endowment. KMA’s early years, in contrast, were turbulent, with frequent staff turnover, financial uncertainty, and an undefined mission. “[In Cleveland] we had a huge staff of curators, we had a lot of money, we had vast collections to work with, a huge library,” Wicks says. “We had great support from the community. So nothing I learned up there prepared me for the challenges I had to face, which were immediately making budget cuts and trying to establish some kind of identity and momentum for a fledgling museum.”

Wicks basically learned how to be a curator on the job. In 2003, after 13 years at a still-struggling museum, he left for a job at the Columbus Museum in Columbus, Ga. Four years later, in

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KNOXVILLE MERCURY February 25, 2016

2007, Wicks came back to an entirely different institution.

“I thought it would be weird to go back to a place I had already worked,” Wicks says. “But when I talked to this director who had been hired a year before that, David Butler, I just thought, wow, this is not the same place I left. I felt it would be a new adventure on familiar turf instead of just coming back to an old position and picking up where you’d left off.”

At that point, after almost 20 years, the museum still didn’t have a recognizable identity. Its collection was small and attendance was declining. Under

Butler and Wicks, all that changed.

Instead of trying to compete with other regional museums, like the Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, or the Mint Museum in Charlotte, they decided KMA should tell the story of East Tennessee’s art history. They ditched the expensive blockbuster exhibits KMA had staged in the late ’90s and early ’00s—shows that brought in crowds but were so expensive that they still lost money—in favor of exhibitions that celebrated local and regional artists. It was a story they were uniquely qualified to tell. And if KMA didn’t do that, who would?

“That’s my only contribution—looking at how the museum had struggled with its identity and voice and saying, you know, we need to be about this place,” Butler says. “I’ll take credit for going in that direction, but Stephen’s the one who figured out how to do it. He had a lot of that in his back pocket when he came back, and we were lucky that we had someone with that depth of experience and those connections, who had been thinking about these things

for a long time and knew which levers to pull to make this happen.”

Butler credits Wicks with long-range vision—since coming back to KMA in 2007, he’s been able to apply the skills he learned during his first stint here—and the connections he had made—toward a specific, overarching goal.

“The curator is the DNA of the institution,” Butler says. “I’m old-fashioned about museums. I believe who

“The curator is the DNA of the institution. Who you are as a museum is a function of what you have on the walls and in the basement.”

—KMA director David Butler on curator Stephen Wicks (above)

you are as a museum is a function of what you have on the walls and in the basement—what you own as an institution and what you keep in trust for the public.

“That has changed radically for us over the past 25 years, and especially over the last 10 years, where we’ve gone from a handful of acquisitions a year to close to 100 some years. The talent of a curator is not in the details so much as the big vision—this is why we’re important to this community, this is our function as the keeper of this legacy and the interpreter of this legacy.”

Wicks’ first major accomplishment after he came back was Higher Ground, a permanent exhibit that opened in 2008, featuring works by dozens of artists with East Tennessee connections: the great modernist Beauford Delaney, who left Knoxville for a career in New York; Ansel Adams, whose catalog includes photos of the Great Smoky Moun-

tains; the prominent folk artist Bessie Harvey, from Alcoa; the glass artist Richard Jolley; and the contemporary star Wade Guyton, who grew up here and graduated from UT. “I had forgotten just how many great examples of those artists’ works were already downstairs in our fairly modest collection, in storage,” Wicks says. Combining what KMA already owned with loans from UT, other museums, and gifts from collectors, Wicks built what has become the anchor exhibit of the area’s major art institution in just a few months. And digging through the past set the stage for the current exhibit.

“Everyone was so generous, partly because many of the great things we needed were sitting in storage somewhere else,” Wicks says.

“And I got really excited putting this exhibition together, and I loved some of the stories that were coming out.”

One of the stories that emerged was the Knoxville Seven.

Above: “Figure in Landscape” (1955)

by Robert Birdwell Courtesy of the Knoxville Museum of Art/ Ann and Robert Birdwell.

Below: A postcard announcing the group’s 1963 Dogwood Arts Festival show, Seven Knoxville Artists of America.

February 25, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 19

T

he Knoxville Seven only existed for a few years. It was a loose coalition, not an organized group.

Ewing and the members of his expanding circle put on two- or three-person shows together starting in the mid-1950s, but it wasn’t until 1961, with the arrival of Philip Nichols to the faculty, that there were seven participating artists. Two of the members, Higgs Ross and Nichols, never even met—by the time Nichols arrived, Higgs Ross had left Knoxville.

(She still sent work from Middle Tennessee for Knoxville shows.)

Their crowning collective achievement was a 1963 show at the McClung Museum, part of the Dogwood Arts Festival, titled Seven Knoxville Artists of America. Ewing borrowed bowler hats and white tuxedos from the theater department for himself and Stevens, with “Knoxville 7” stenciled on the back of the jackets. The poster for the event was an American flag in red and beige, with the artists’ names listed on the stripes. Sublett’s “Pop Goes My Easel” was one of the works included.

By the mid ’60s, the Knoxville Seven had made their splash together and made room for new ideas about art in Knoxville’s conservative cultural landscape. The expansion of the art department that they had inspired meant heavier teaching loads and more administrative work, and their success as a group opened up opportunities for each of them individually.

“It was mission accomplished, more or less,” Eric Sublett says.

“They’d won these regional prizes and their reputations got bigger, so they’d send stuff to St. Louis or Chicago or New Orleans and they’d be winning prizes there. But they’d be doing it more individually. My dad was born in 1919, this is 1963—he was becoming a little more sedentary, and they were all getting older. This was more or less the flower of their youth, or their prime. Nobody ever said, ‘The Knoxville Seven is dead.’”

As the ideas they had once championed became commonplace,

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KNOXVILLE MERCURY February 25, 2016

their work together was largely forgotten. People remembered the events but the work those events celebrated was fading from memory.

“Not everything the Knoxville Seven did was genius, but they did a lot of great work that holds up now,” Wicks says. “Most of what I hear people remembering about them is not about their art. It’s about the lively auctions and openings that Buck Ewing orchestrated. People talk about those like they happened yesterday. But I want people to remember the art and what they were doing and how much they were pushing the envelope in the studio.”

The art is the center of Wicks’ exhibit. He’s assembled about a dozen works from each artist, most of them from the Knoxville Seven period, and dedicated the entire main floor to them. There’s a historical narrative running through the show—you can see each artist’s development, and you’ll notice how they influenced each other and how the best work comes from the period when the group was at its most active, in the early ’60s. But the art itself is the main thing, and it still has the capacity to surprise you.

“I knew these guys were good, but I had no idea of the level of quality that compares so favorably to anywhere else,” Butler says. “It’s not provincial at all, and that was a real revelation to me. And you can see them working through the first half of the 20th century—through cubism, through surrealism. It’s the same journey that more famous artists like Jackson Pollock and de Kooning and the much better known, more famous abstract expressionists working in New York went through. They’re schooling themselves through European art, but it’s all grounded here in East Tennessee. I think that’s pretty fascinating.”

From a curators’ perspective, the show has already been a huge success—KMA has officially acquired, through purchase or donation, several pieces in the show, and more have been promised. (Many were already in the museum’s collection.) And Wicks and Butler expect more opportunities to come forward now that the show is up—for lost works to come back to light, revealing even more of the story.

“I told Stephen to think about this as Knoxville Seven 1.0,” Butler says. ◆

“Untitled (Buffalo)” (1961)

by Philip Nichols.

Courtesy of the Knoxville Museum of Art/Oak Ridge Art Center.

WHAT Knoxville Seven WHERE Knoxville Museum of Art (1050 World’s Fair Park Drive) WHEN Through April 17 HOW MUCH Free INFO knoxart.org

Knoxville Seven exhibition opening at the University of Tennessee’s Frank H. McClung Museum, April 15, 1963. Photograph by Robert Bolton. Courtesy of the Robert Bolton Collection of the Louis Round Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina.

Meet the Knoxville Seven Robert Birdwell

Richard Clarke

(b. 1924) Birdwell was the only East Tennessee native in the Knoxville Seven. He liked painting downtown, and he moved easily from representational painting to abstraction—his two contrasting 1962 versions of Gay Street, one at night, one during the day, are among the Knoxville Museum of Art exhibit’s highlights. He also enjoyed figure painting; Wicks included a nude sketch by Birdwell to show that, underneath all the modernist trappings, the Knoxville Seven still had traditional skills and training.

(1923-1997) Clarke, a printmaker and painter, was one of Buck Ewing’s earliest recruits to the University of Tennessee art department faculty. He worked as both a painter and a printmaker. Clarke’s paintings—many of them images of the quarries of East Tennessee and rugged coastlines—flattened the landscape into geometric shapes in deep browns, reds, and greens. His prints featured similar arrangements of shapes and colors, but were more strictly abstract exercises.

C. Kermit “Buck” Ewing (1910-1976) The ringleader of the Knoxville Seven, Ewing is mostly remembered for his elaborately orchestrated openings and outrageous art auctions.

But he was also a gifted painter—his landscapes from Spain, a cubist-style depiction of Rich’s department store, and some mixed-media works from the ’60s show his mastery of old-fashioned technique and his almost limitless curiosity. Ewing also built the UT art department from scratch, and the Ewing Gallery at the Art and Architecture Building on campus is named for him.

Philip Nichols

Joanna Higgs Ross

Walter Stevens

Carl Sublett

(b. 1931) The final member of the group came to UT from the University of Michigan in 1961. Over time, his metal sculptures shifted from representational (his steel buffalo is a favorite of exhibition viewers) to abstract and finally to big heavy pieces inspired by industrial design and mid-century ideas about technological progress, with features that resemble pistons, turbines, and other machinery.

(b. 1934) Higgs Ross was the first female graduate of Ewing’s new art program at UT. She participated with the group while she was in graduate school and for a few years after, even though she had moved to Middle Tennessee. Like other Knoxville Seven painters, she favored landscapes; some leaned toward pure abstraction, like her triptych of the Smoky Mountains in the Knoxville Museum of Art atrium, but one of her most notable paintings in the show features Higgs Ross herself walking through a haunting, forbidding early morning field.

(1927-1980) Stevens was the purest adherent of abstraction among the Knoxville Seven, but even he took inspiration from landscapes and architectural design. As his work developed, his interlocking slashes of color and shape became more ethereal and soft, but he maintained a distinctive compositional style. Stevens and Sublett both had summer homes in Maine.

(1919-2008) Sublett worked as a commercial artist before joining the UT faculty, and his home on Lake Avenue was a frequent gathering spot for the group. He found inspiration in the rugged quarries of East Tennessee and the shorelines of Maine, where he spent the summers. His early paintings show a fascination with texture, with thick layers of paint and gestural brush strokes. Later in his career, he focused on watercolors.

—Matthew Everett

February 25, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 21

A&E

P rogram Notes

Old-Time Hootenanny Knoxville Stomp unleashes a huge lineup in celebration of the St. James Sessions

H

ow can a festival that hosts bands like the Carolina Cud Chewers, the Corn Potato String Band, Roochie Toochie and Ragtime Shepherd Kings, and Uncle Shuffelo and His Haint Hollow Hootenanny not be fun? The organizers of Knoxville Stomp, a celebration of old-time country, jazz, blues, and gospel (and more) from Knoxville, are going super old-school with entertainment for the festival, which is set for May 5-8 at various venues around downtown.

“When we announced that these lost recordings were going to be re-released in May, it was like we’d turned on a tractor beam for musical historians and re-creators of historical music,” says festival production manager Matt Morelock, an old-timey music enthusiast and practitioner, ex-Knoxvillian, former proprietor of Morelock Music on Gay Street, and current Hawaii resident, in a press release. “This is a really big deal! Be ready for the best in old-time, vintage jazz, country blues, and gospel music. Local bands and historians along with those coming from all over the world are ready to put on quite a show to honor this special occasion!”

The specific occasion for the festival is the upcoming release of a CD box set from prestigious German label

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Shelf Life: knoxlib.org

KNOXVILLE MERCURY February 25, 2016

Bear Family Records that compiles a set of legendary recordings made in Knoxville in 1929 and 1930. The so-called St. James Sessions (many of the recordings were made at the St. James Hotel on Wall Avenue) were among the last commercial music recordings made in East Tennessee before the Great Depression. They were notably different from similar sessions in Bristol and Johnson City that have also been documented by Bear Family—while those sessions produced landmark sides by Jimmie Rodgers, the Carter Family, and other country music pioneers, the Knoxville recordings were much broader in scope.

The sessions attracted artists from around the Southeast, some country but also blues and gospel singers, jazz combos, black string bands, and country blues performers.

Most of them disappeared when the record market crashed along with the stock market. Some of them are lost, probably forever. Most of them were preserved by the early generations of 78 collectors in the 1950s and ’60s.

(Those collectors are a sort of sub-theme of Knoxville Stomp—Joe Bussard, one of the most famous of the early collectors, will be here for a presentation, and music writer

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Classical Music: Hansel and Gretel

Amanda Petrusich, author of Do Not Sell at Any Price: The Wild, Obsessive Hunt for the World’s Rarest 78 rpm Records, will also attend. And there’s a 78 record show scheduled.)

Dom Flemons, formerly of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, headlines the music schedule—he’ll perform at the Bijou Theatre on Friday, May 6.

Local bands will recreate some of the music from the Knoxville Sessions on the Market Square stage on Saturday, May 7. Gospel and jazz artists take over the Square on Sunday, March 8.

The full lineup includes the Bearded, Bill and the Belles, the Carolian Cud Chewers, the Corn Potato String Band, the Down Hill Strugglers, Matt Downer, the East Tennessee State University Old Time Pride Band, Matt Foster, Eli Fox, Frog and Toad’s Dixie Quartet, Gammon, Horton and Reynolds, the Georgia Crackers, God’s Gospel Singers, the Hellgramites, Hunter Holmes, Kelle Jolly and the Will Boyd Project, Matt Kinman, the Knox County Jug Stompers, the Knoxville Banjo Orchestra, Alex Leach, Sean McCollough (with students from South Knoxville Elementary School), the Mumbillies, the John Myers Band, the Old Time Travelers, Roochie Toochie and the Ragtime Shepherd Kings, Todd Steed, the Streamliners Swing orchestra, the Tennessee Stifflegs, Uncle Shuffelo and His Haint Hollow Hootenanny, and Kukuly Uriarte.

Panelists and speakers include Bussard, Petrusich, Eric Dawson and Bradley Reeves of the Knox County Public Library’s Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound, John Fabke, Martin Fisher, Lance Ledbetter, our own Jack Neely, Ted Olson, Tony Russell, Nancy Brennan Strange, Elijah Wald, Bear Family founder Richard Weize, Marshall Wyatt, and Jerry Zolten.

Knoxville Stomp is being presented

by TAMIS, WDVX, the East Tennessee Historical Society, and Visit Knoxville as part of Knoxville’s 225th anniversary celebration. For more information about the festival, see knoxstomp.com.

—Matthew Everett

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Royal Hounds Fetch New Release Your chances of seeing the Royal Hounds around town any time soon are pretty slim—the lounge-rock/rockabilly/honky-tonk trio, led by acrobatic frontman and bassist Scott Hinds, decamped to Las Vegas a couple of years ago.

Knoxville’s loss, Sin City’s gain, but if you ever saw the band, you know that Vegas was their spiritual home even before it was their actual one. “The Royal Hounds flaunt blistering chops, estimable wit, and anarchic showmanship that reigns at their live performances,” Mike Gibson wrote in a Metro Pulse review of the band’s first album, I’m in Love With a Zombie.

But it won’t be too long before you can enjoy new jumps and jives from the band via the magic of compact disc or digital download.

Earlier this week, the Hounds launched an Indiegogo campaign to raise $15,000 for the release of their second album, the not-so-subtle double-entrende-titled Poker All Night Long.

It’s already been recorded; the crowd-funding money will be used to pay for pressing and promotion, including two new music videos.

Donors get perks ranging from a download of Poker and I’m in Love With a Zombie ($15) to a private concert by the band anywhere in the continental United States ($3,500). In between are an autographed CD ($25), a trip to Las Vegas ($1,200), a custom song ($2,000), and more.

“Basically, we are trying to introduce the Royal Hounds to a global audience because we are passionate about this style of music and about this new album,” they write on their Indiegogo page.

—M.E.

Movies: Field Niggas

Shelf Life

Upstream Log in to a world of music at the Knox County Public Library’s website

BY CHRIS BARRETT

T

he package art of R.E.M.’s swansong compilation, Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982 – 2011, is decorated with symbols depicting the technology by which the band’s music has been heard. There’s a cassette, a 7-inch single, an LP, a compact disc, and finally the pie-slice of concentric radii we’ve come to associate with wireless Internet service. As I type this, the Knox County Public Library’s CD copy of R.E.M.’s Murmur is checked out. The library seems not to own a hard copy of Reckoning. But with my Knox County Public Library card number and PIN, I can visit knoxlib. org and listen to both records all I like—with no exposure to winter weather or the daily-changing challenge that is moving a vehicle around downtown Knoxville.

Alexander Street is not Spotify or Pandora or Apple Music. It’s a research database. The company’s offerings are enormous; KCPL simply subscribes to its streaming audio on your behalf, which is extremely cost-effective compared to competitors. Alexander Street’s only real disadvantages compared to those other digital music sources are related to familiarity. No offense intended toward anybody—its player and search tools are simply designed for an educated audience of a certain age and sophistication, as opposed to adolescents.

KCPL owns and loans nearly 14,000 music CDs in a collection that’s constantly growing. If you buy music for your own household, you

have a sense of how expensive it can be to keep a collection current. Our most popular CDs tend to contain the most ephemeral of music, to be of short-lived interest, and generally take a beating or go missing and require replacement.

Streaming music will never replace KCPL’s physical collection.

But Alexander Street makes an excellent companion to that collection.

I can recommend it as such simply as a guy who works behind a desk at the library, or I can share these exciting episodes from my own experience. A couple of Saturdays ago I re-watched Amadeus on the library’s Blu-ray.

Dozens of Mozart operas and chamber-music pieces are excerpted in the film. The following Sunday, I was able to stream those that I don’t own, including Abduction From the Seraglio. I’ve been reading the library’s e-book edition of Dave Mustaine’s memoirs (on the Kindle I

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resurrected from an e-waste recycling bin on campus) and searched Alexander Street for Megadeth. There’s only a single of “Super Collider”—but it’s a track that we don’t own on a physical disc.

Because Alexander Street is a research database, if I wished to refer to “Super Collider” in a scholastic paper, it would generate a citation for me to copy and paste (in AP, MLA, or Chicago style). More relevant to my own selfish concerns—and possibly your own—the database will let me add the track to a playlist which I can save or bookmark or share via link or social media. It will let me send the track to my phone. It will give me html code to embed a player on my blog or website. (Online readers will see a player below this text for Knoxville’s own Leola Manning singing “Satan is Busy in Knoxville.”)

Alexander Street’s database is terrifically rich in classical music and jazz. An acquaintance observed that it’s particularly well stocked with composers and artists related to Big Ears 2016. The American Song collection has earned due accolades for its breadth and depth. A colleague was disappointed that Alexander Street offers no Culture Club, but felt compensated by Frances Faye’s presence, which kind of demonstrates what it’s for and what it’s good at: Our physical collection has about all the Culture Club you’d need, but contains no Frances Faye.

Spend some time with it, and let us know what you think. ◆

Streaming music will never

or

When you want to reach the local market, advertise in Knoxville’s best local and independent newspaper.

For more information, call 865-313-2048 or email sales@knoxmercury.com

replace KCPL’s physical collection.

But Alexander Street makes an excellent companion to that collection.

February 25, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 23

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Classical Music

Sweet Confection Knoxville Opera brings back the timeless Hansel and Gretel

BY ALAN SHERROD

A

modern story? Mom is at home, stressed out, worried silly about the family finances, while Dad is away on business. The kids—a boy and a girl—are supposed to be helping their frazzled mother with chores around the house, but resort to playing games when Mom isn’t looking. Mom catches them goofing off; in anger, she drops a dish and ruins dinner. Exasperated and on her last nerve, Mom sends the children outside on an errand, forgetting that a child predator lives nearby.

In this case, the story is not torn from the pages of the morning paper, but rather from the pages of a Brothers Grimm fairy tale. It’s the opening

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KNOXVILLE MERCURY February 25, 2016

for the adaptation by Adelheid Wette, written for her brother, the German composer Engelbert Humperdinck, as the libretto for his opera Hansel and Gretel. The now classic opera will be presented by Knoxville Opera, in English, this weekend in two performances at the Tennessee Theatre.

Let’s get one thing out of the way: Our operatic Humperdinck is not the ’60s and ’70s British pop singer Arnold Dorsey, who took the name professionally to energize a flagging career. The genuine Humperdinck, born in 1854 in Siegburg, Germany, was pushed into studying architecture by his parents but eventually rebelled and pursued a music career. While on a scholarship,

he met composer Richard Wagner, who invited him to Bayreuth and the Festspielhaus to assist in the score preparation for Parsifal.

Hansel and Gretel, Humperdinck’s first opera, grew from a few songs the composer wrote for his nieces, who liked to stage performances designed by their mother. Wette’s adapted fairy-tale story and Humperdinck’s songs proved so popular with family and friends that they began to expand it into a singspiel of 16 songs with cohesive dialogue that was first performed privately at a small theater in Frankfurt. Encouraged by the response, notably from composer Richard Strauss, Humperdinck created a full opera version with orchestration. Strauss himself conducted the first performance, in Weimar, two days before Christmas in 1893, thus creating a tradition of the work being a holiday favorite.

The opera proved extremely popular with turn-of-the-century German audiences, who were tiring of the current trend of Italian verismo opera and yearning for less realism.

Strauss himself wrote, “Your opera has enchanted me. It is truly a masterpiece. I have not seen such an important work for a long time. I admire the abundance of melody, the finesse, the polyphonic richness of the orchestration.” And underscoring the apparent musical nationalistic fervor, Strauss declared it “original, new, and so authentically German.”

Although the effects of Humperdinck’s time working with Wagner are apparent in his music, the score is truly original and accessible, certainly one of the factors in its popularity.

The “Evening Prayer,” sung by Hansel and Gretel as they are falling asleep, lost in the forest, as Act I ends, is arguably one of the most heart-tugging combinations of melody and orchestration in all of opera.

Knoxville Opera’s production of Hansel and Gretel is being directed by Candace Evans, who previously staged KO’s Romeo et Juliette in 2012. Evans echoes the story’s universality: “The opera itself is a very modern story, with family stress, economic woes, overwhelmed parents, children with

little understanding of the realities of their parent’s stress and the stranger-danger that can await a bad decision. Evil, faith, and the true core of family love are ever-modern topics.”

That evil, as everyone knows from the fairy tale, comes in the form of a witch (sung by Katherine Lerner) who enchants and ensnares children with a house made entirely of sweets, subsequently fattening them up with the intention of eating them. The roles of Hansel and Gretel are traditionally sung by a mezzo-soprano in a pants role, and a soprano, respectively—in this KO production, they’ll be sung by Chrystal E. Williams and Lindsay Russell. The role of the children’s mother is being sung by Elizabeth Peterson, with their father sung by Scott Bearden. Bearden should be a familiar voice for Knoxville audiences, having sung Iago in Otello, Tonio in Pagliacci, and Jack Rance in La fanciulla del West for KO. The role of the Dew Fairy will be sung by Mia Pafumi, with the Sandman sung by Margaret Ramsey. Conducting the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra will be KO executive director, Brian Salesky. ◆

WHAT

Knoxville Opera: Hansel and Gretel

WHERE

Tennessee Theatre (803 S. Gay St.)

WHEN

Friday, Feb. 26, at 8 p.m. and Sunday, Feb. 28, at 2:30 p.m.

HOW MUCH $21-$99

INFO

knoxvilleopera.com

Movies

Field Notes Khalik Allah’s experimental documentary about a Harlem street corner is unlike anything you’ve seen

BY LEE GARDNER

W

hen’s the last time you watched something that you’ve never really seen anything else like?

That’s the rare and bracing experience that Field Niggas offers. Part experimental documentary, part audio-visual poem, photographer Khalik Allah’s hour-long film captures a series of summer nights on the corner of 125th Street and Lexington Avenue in Harlem in the summer of 2014. It also captures the people who inhabit it, or pass by, in an unpredictable and revelatory way. In case it needs saying again, you’ve never seen anything like it.

The film opens with the sound of voices—some arguing—layered over slow-motion footage of what appears to be people on the nod, mid-narcotic liftoff, dreamy in that frozen sway familiar on certain street corners everywhere. But the imagery shifts away from the users to a woman’s face, eyes boring into the lens. A pair of hands running over the straining surface of a bare, pregnant belly. All in slow-motion. And all the while, voices are talking, but no lips are moving onscreen, or at least not in any way that corresponds with what you’re hearing on the soundtrack.

That non-sync sound disconnect continues through to the end credits.

The subjects before Allah’s camera are constantly talking, rapping, singing, arguing, answering questions, and asking them, too, but you never get anything like a traditional documentary talking head. You never get a formal introduction to anyone involved, either. You hear their voices, and a bit of their stories, and you see their faces. You begin to figure out that, much of the time, the person you

see on screen is the person whose voice you hear. But the dislocating effect holds true nonetheless.

Field Niggas also offers a disconnect between the kind of urban life many outsiders are happy to make assumptions about and the realities of the people who live it. One man boasts that he is “in the game,” part of the illicit hustle of the street, but he pairs that proud announcement with another—that he’s written two novels.

There’s a lot of talk about crime, of rolling anyone foolish enough to fall asleep, and of selling and consuming drugs, but there are also many avowals of the straight life, and much discussion of wisdom and teaching.

There are men with hard, hard faces, with eyes obliterated beneath jagged scars, with scabby legs. There are beautiful young women, smiling dreamily into Allah’s camera, or

pushing strollers, their eyes only slightly smaller and less trusting than their toddlers’.

Allah remains a documentarian.

He turns several times to the neighborhood cops, benignly, but he also examines their antagonistic relationship with the people on the corner. He invokes Eric Garner, the Staten Island man who died at the hands of police that summer. And he captures the pervasiveness of drug use, and of its effects. K2, synthetic weed, is such a fact of life in the neighborhood that one subject named her dog “K2.” But subjects tangled up with more serious chemicals—alcohol and opiates— make clear the devastating effects of such a life. One man confesses that he only eats about three times a week.

One unseen woman asks Allah to stop filming her so she can ask a question.

When he lowers his camera, presumably, she pauses before asking, “Do I look okay?” His halting, equivocal answer makes her question all the more heartbreaking.

But Allah is also clearly conscious of the fact that he’s not a traditional documentarian. His booming voice appears all over the voice-over, and he captures himself and his SLR camera looming in mirrors far too often for it to be an accident. While Field Niggas never exerts itself toward beauty, it finds it

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nonetheless, in the gleam of the rain-slicked streets, in the festive police-car bubble lights, and in the wall-to-wall unblinking takes of faces staring into his lens. He knows he’s making art, too. In one of the film’s funniest moments, a young woman tells him he needs to take his project downtown, to Chelsea or the Lower East Side. “People down there, like, love stuff like that—black people and drugs,” she chirps.

Perhaps the closest analog to what Allah does here lies in the work of Terence Malick, of all people.

Malick has developed a technique where he films scenes featuring actors twice, once with dialogue, and then once without. He then cuts the two versions together, letting the unspoken work of the actors’ faces, and his frequent use of voice-over, expand on traditional he said/she said. And while Allah arrived at the technique he uses here through the clash between camera sound and his dedication to slo-mo, it functions in much the same way. By rejecting traditional documentary narrative— this is a direct, unaltered representation of facts—he also tacitly rejects the traditional narrative of “inner-city life.” His intimate but abstract portraits of people who are somebody, and at the same time anybody, finish his work for him. ◆

WHAT

Public Cinema: Field Niggas

WHERE

Pilot Light (106 E. Jackson Ave.)

WHEN

Tuesday, March 1, at 7:30 p.m.

HOW MUCH Free

INFO

publiccinema.org

February 25, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 25

CALENDAR MUSIC

Thursday, Feb. 25 DEE DEE BROGAN • Bourbon Street Whiskey Bar • 6PM JEREMY MOORE WITH KIRK THURMOND AND THE MILLENNIALS • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE WARREN PINEDA AND JON MASON • Red Piano Lounge • 6PM DIXIEGHOST • Scruffy City Hall • 6PM • Knoxville band Dixieghost is pushing back against what it means to be a folk band. The band’s lead singer, songwriter, and guitarist, Jason Hanna, a Knoxville native, is trying to distance his band from mainstream radio-friendly folk groups like Mumford and Sons while staying true to his and his bandmates’ traditional folk and Appalachian roots. In the seven years since Dixieghost released its first self-titled album, with an almost entirely different lineup, the bluegrass-influenced band has developed a more confident voice and a more refined idea of the kind of musicians they want to be. On their new album, Wine and Spirits, Dixieghost’s progressive style helps them stand out from similar groups without betraying the standards of traditional folk, country, and bluegrass.

TESTAMENT WITH CARCASS • The Concourse • 7:30PM • Testament was one of the first thrash metal bands to emerge from the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1980s. 18 and up. • $22-$25 BERNAROO! BANDS FOR BERNIE 2016 • Scruffy City Hall • 7:30PM • Featuring Will Horton (of the Black Cadillacs) and friends, the Tennessee Stifflegs, Tim Lee, and the spoken word of Black Atticus. Bill Foster will emcee the event, and we will hear from special guest Evelyn Gill, Knox County 1st District Commission candidate.

KUKULY AND THE GYPSY FUEGO • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 8PM KIRK THURMOND AND THE MILLENNIALS WITH MOJO:FLOW, THE VALLEY OPERA, AND THE NEW APOLOGETIC • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM • All ages. • $5 NEW ROMANTICS WITH ORGANIZED CRIMES, BEECH CREEPS, AND A CERTAIN ZONE • Pilot Light • 9:30PM • This 3-piece scuzzed-up rock outfit formed in Brooklyn, NY in 2013, as a rock-and-roll outlet for veterans of various past and present New York bands, including Ex Models, Pterodactyl, Doug Gillard band, Knyfe Hyts, the Seconds, and Yeasayer. • $5 POSITIVE MENTAL ATTITUDE • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up.

ROREY CARROLL • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • Rorey Carroll’s sound rolls in low and powerful with the feeling of a Tarantino film for the ears. A new kind of “Country Western Folk-n-Roll.”

Friday, Feb. 26 FIRESIDE COLLECTIVE • Sugarlands Distilling Co. (Gatlinburg) • 5PM • FREE ALIVE AFTER FIVE: CRYSTAL SHAWANDA • Knoxville Museum of Art • 6PM • The winter series of AA5 concludes with a tribute to Ida Cox, born on February 25, 1894, and buried in Knoxville’s New Grey Cemetery, after living the last two decades of her life here. We are delighted to have Crystal Shawanda and her band perform for this occasion. Now based in Nashville, she is a Native American from Ontario. After enjoying considerable success as a country music artist, winning numerous awards and signing with RCA Records, her songwriting and performing began evolving as she 26

KNOXVILLE MERCURY February 25, 2016

Thursday, Feb. 25 - Sunday, March 6

followed her heart to blues and soul. • $10 WENDEL WERNER • Red Piano Lounge • 6PM THE JUDY CARMICHAEL TRIO • Clayton Center for the Arts (Maryville) • 7:30PM • Judy Carmichael is one of a handful of musicians who approach jazz from a perspective of its entire history. Choosing to study jazz piano from its early roots on, she explores the music deeply, infusing it with a “fresh, dynamic interpretation of her own” (Washington Post ). • $25 FROG AND TOAD’S DIXIE QUARTET • The Crown and Goose • 8PM • Live jazz featuring a mix of original music, early jazz and more. • FREE THE DEADBEAT SCOUNDRELS WITH HANDSOME AND THE HUMBLES AND MARCUS BUNCH • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM • All ages. • $7 LACY GREEN • Preservation Pub • 8PM • 21 and up.

JAMEL MITCHELL • Red Piano Lounge • 9PM • $5 CLAYMATION • The Bistro at the Bijou • 9PM • Live jazz. • FREE PISTOL CREEK • Brackins Blues Club ( Maryville) • 9PM THE COVERALLS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • Knoxville’s long-running bar/wedding/special event favorites are masters of mood—they know what an audience wants, whether it’s Top 40 hits, Motown, classic rock, or jazz standards, and they deliver, on time, every time. • $5 BLUE MOTHER TUPELO • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 10PM TAIL LIGHT REBELLION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE MOJO:FLOW • Two Doors Down • 10PM THE DOWNRIGHT BAND WITH AMBROSE WAY • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up.

WENDEL WERNER WITH THE JOHN ALVIS BAND • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-aweek lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE WHISKEY ‘N’ WOOD • Cru Bistro and Wine Bar • 8PM • Whiskey ‘n’ Wood , an acoustic/electric duo perform an eclectic mix of classic rock hits complete with stellar harmonies, old-school rhythm (via cigar box and foot tambourine) and wit. WYSIWYG... no backing tracks , drum tracks, harmonizers or loops. Whiskey ‘n’ Wood is Chip Hicks (acoustic guitar, vocals, rhythm) and Benny Brooks (electric guitar, vocals, wry comments). • FREE BARK WITH PSYCHIC BAOS AND MARC HIGGINS AND THE CHAINSAW BEARS • Pilot Light • 9PM • Tim Lee celebrates his birthday with a performance by his experimental rock duo, with his wife, Susan Bauer Lee. • $5 Saturday, Feb. 27 JOHN JORGENSON • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE ROGER ALAN WADE • Sugarlands Distilling Co. (Gatlinburg) • 4PM • Singer/Songwriter for over 35 years, Roger Alan Wade has penned songs for country legends such as Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, George Jones and the number one hit Country State of Mind for Hank Williams Jr. • FREE KATY FREE • Red Piano Lounge • 6PM BROOKE WAGGONER • Central Collective • 8PM • Brooke Waggoner’s sound, explored and refined in her latest album, SWEVEN, draws the notes between her past and present and doesn’t hesitate to mine an unusual source – herself. Brooke found herself revisiting her earliest work, captured in a pre-YouTube phase of life, that she had recorded throughout her childhood. • $10-$12 TRACTORHEAD WITH J.C. AND THE DIRTY SMOKERS AND

SHIMMY AND THE BURNS • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM • All ages. • $7 WIGGINS AND HACK • Preservation Pub • 8PM • 21 and up.

THE WILL YAGER TRIO • Red Piano Lounge • 9PM • $5 MARK BOLING • The Bistro at the Bijou • 9PM • Live jazz. • FREE JOEY PRICE • Brackins Blues Club • 9PM THE CARMONAS • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE CHEW • Preservation Pub • 10PM • Experimental rock from Atlanta. 21 and up.

JOHN PAUL KEITH • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • John Paul Keith, the brilliant singer-songwriter and blistering guitarist who exploded out of a self-imposed

musical exile in Memphis with 2009’s critically acclaimed Spills and Thrills and 2011’s The Man That Time Forgot, returns with Memphis Circa 3AM—his most accomplished and moving collection of songs yet.

SHAUN ABBOTT • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria (Maryville) • 10PM MANIC FOCUS WITH ARTIFAKTS, CUDDLEFISH, AND LEGENDARY BIRD • The Concourse • 10PM • 18 and up. • $7 SOUTHBOUND • Two Doors Down • 10PM CHARGE THE ATLANTIC WITH ELUSIVE GROOVE AND WHITE NOISE • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up.

WOLVES WOLVES WOLVES WOLVES WITH PAPERWORK, THROUGH THE SPARKS, AND THE HARAKIRIS • Pilot Light •

KURT VILE AND THE VIOLATORS Bijou Theatre (803 S. Gay St.) • Wednesday, March 2 • 8 p.m. • $24 • knoxbijou.com

It seems strange to characterize an act called Kurt Vile and the Violators this way, but here we are—there’s no more lovable figure in serious rock music. The puppy-dog face is the first tip-off, but it goes a lot deeper than that. Since emerging from lo-fi haze on 2009’s Childish Prodigy, Vile’s skills as a songwriter have risen along with his profile, even as his sound bounces everywhere from acoustic pickin’ to driving rock a la his former affiliates the War on Drugs. But whichever mode he’s working in, it’s all unmistakably Vile: reflective lyrics and ramshackle arrangements matched by Kurt’s shy, drowsy vocal. (Vintage Neil Young is a good point of comparison, for both shambolic beauty and the apparently effortless flow of great songs.) You get a feel for the guy, and dammit if you don’t just want to hug him.

Vile and his band play Wednesday at the Bijou, touring on last year’s b’lieve i’m goin down.

Led off by standout track “Pretty Pimpin,” Vile’s sixth record is his most cohesive and subdued yet, but fans of the wilder stuff need not worry—in addition to Vile’s deep catalog, he’s brought along garage-psych noisemakers (and fellow Philadelphians) Spacin’ as a fuzzy palate cleanser. (Nick Huinker)

29

Spotlight: Kevin Gates

32

Spotlight: A Lesson Before Dying

Thursday, Feb. 25 - Sunday, March 6

9:30PM • 18 and up. • $5 JOHN PAUL KEITH • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • John Paul Keith, the brilliant singer-songwriter and blistering guitarist who exploded out of a self-imposed musical exile in Memphis with 2009’s critically acclaimed Spills and Thrills and 2011’s The Man That Time Forgot, returns with Memphis Circa 3AM—his most accomplished and moving collection of songs yet.

Sunday, Feb. 28 SHIFFLETT’S JAZZ BENEDICT • The Bistro at the Bijou • 12PM • Live jazz. • FREE SUNDAY JAZZ BRUNCH • Downtown Grill and Brewery • 12:45PM • Knoxville’s coolest jazz artists perform every Sunday. • FREE SPECTRUM ELECTRIC JAZZ ORCHESTRA • Red Piano Lounge • 7PM THE BROCKEFELLERS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 8PM KEVIN GATES • The International • 9PM • Since releasing his first mixtape Pick Of Da Litter in 2007, Kevin Gates’ rise to success has been organic. Following his release from prison in 2011, he doubled down and delivered with a hyper focus that yielded 2012’s audience favorite Make ‘em Believe and 2013’s mainstream breakthrough The Luca Brasi Story, building one of the most dedicated and diehard fan bases in music. 18 and up. • $25-$100 • See Spotlight on page 29.

THE SAINT JOHNS WITH BRAVE BABY • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up.

WARREN HAYNES AND THE ASHES AND DUST BAND • Bijou Theatre • 8PM • Grammy Award winning artist Warren Haynes has been recognized as a cornerstone of the American music landscape and revered as one of the finest guitar players in the world. Throughout his prolific career as part of three of the greatest live groups in rock history – Allman Brothers Band, Gov’t Mule and the Dead – his virtuosic artistry has led to thousands of unforgettable performances and millions of album and track sales. • $32-$42 Monday, Feb. 29 FREDDY AND FRANCINE • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE KEVIN GATES • The International • 9PM • Since releasing his first mixtape Pick Of Da Litter in 2007, Kevin Gates’ rise to success has been organic. • $25-$100 • See Spotlight on page 29.

THE BLUEPRINT • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM IGNATIUS REILLY • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up.

Tuesday, March 1 CHAMOMILE AND WHISKEY WITH LOVE AND THE ZEALOUS • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE RAIN: A TRIBUTE TO THE BEATLES • Tennessee Theatre • 8PM • A live multi-media spectacular that takes you on a musical journey through the life and times of the world’s most celebrated band. • $39-$59 THE MARBLE CITY 5 • Red Piano Lounge • 8PM CHAMOMILE AND WHISKEY • Preservation Pub • 10PM • $3 AARON LEE TASJAN • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM Wednesday, March 2 KJO JAZZ LUNCH • The Square Room • 12PM • On the first Wednesday of every month, Knoxville Jazz Orchestra presents Jazz Lunch. Every month we will bring you a

CALENDAR

new performance to serenade you with a mix of classical and modern Jazz music. The schedule includes a tribute to Gene Harris with pianist Keith Brown (Oct. 7); Spirko & Boyd play the music of the Adderley Brother(Nov. 4); a tribute to Woody Shaw with Alex Norris (Dec. 2); Kayley Farmer sings the Rodgers and Hart songbook (Jan. 6); a tribute to Ethel Waters with Tamara Brown (Feb. 3); a tribute to Ahmad Jamal with Justin Haynes (March 2); and Mike Baggetta plays Patsy Cline (April 6). • $15 LARA HOPE AND THE ARK-TONES WITH THE JONNY MONSTER BAND • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE FROG AND TOAD’S DIXIE QUARTET • The Crown and Goose • 6:30PM • Live jazz featuring a mix of original music, early jazz and more. • FREE TENNESSEE SHINES: THE ROUGH AND TUMBLE • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7PM • Mallory Graham and Scott Tyler exemplify the DIY indie folk movement. Living in Nashville during the rare occasions they’re not on the road, the musicians layer their emotionally present voices and found instruments (shakers, sticks, accordion along with acoustic guitar) to concoct songs that welcome and reward listeners. Their forthcoming release, Pieces and Pieces, is a seven-song soundtrack to a short film about a mother returning from war with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The EP will be released on March 1, and the songs will make their live debut on Tennessee Shines. • $10 KURT VILE AND THE VIOLATORS • Bijou Theatre • 8PM • $24 • See Spotlight on page 26.

FOREIGNER • Tennessee Theatre • 8PM • With ten multi-platinum albums and sixteen Top 30 hits, Foreigner is universally hailed as one of the most popular rock acts in the world with a formidable musical arsenal that continues to propel sold-out tours and album sales, now exceeding 75 million. Responsible for some of rock and roll’s most enduring anthems including “Juke Box Hero,”“Feels Like The First Time,” “Urgent,” “Head Games,” “Hot Blooded,” “Cold As Ice,” “Dirty White Boy,” “Waiting For A Girl Like You,” and the worldwide #1 hit, “I Want To Know What Love Is,” Foreigner continues to rock the charts more than thirty years into the game. • $49.50-$89.50 JAMEL MITCHELL • Red Piano Lounge • 9PM Thursday, March 3 CAROLINABOUND WITH THE DAVE ADKINS BAND • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-aweek lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE J.C. AND THE DIRTY SMOKERS • Preservation Pub • 6PM • Local honky-tonk. 21 and up.

WARREN PINEDA AND JON MASON • Red Piano Lounge • 6PM HEARTLESS BASTARDS WITH SUSTO • Bijou Theatre • 8PM • Heartless Bastards have spent the past decade in motion, boldly pushing their unique brand of rock ‘n’ roll into new shapes over four acclaimed albums and nearly non-stop roadwork. Now, with Restless Ones, the band sets out once again, blazing a path to a place of shifting moods, seasoned songcraft, and unbridled spontaneity. • $16.50 BEN CAPLAN • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • A charismatic charmer and a smasher of pianos. A madman and an earnest poet. A strummer of delicate chords and a lover of bent and broken melodies.

Friday, March 4

DALLAS MOORE WITH DYLAN EARL • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE KEITH BROWN • Red Piano Lounge • 6PM DALLAS MOORE • Sugarlands Distilling Co. (Gatlinburg) • 7PM • FREE FROG AND TOAD’S DIXIE QUARTET • The Crown and Goose • 8PM • Live jazz featuring a mix of original music, early jazz and more. • FREE WILLIAM WILD AND ANDREA MARIE • Bijou Theatre • 8PM • William Wild’s inaugural release pays homage to the musical pioneers of the counterculture revolution with their uniquely dynamic synthesis of 1960s folk and 1970s rock ‘n’ roll. The group’s distinct blend of acoustic instrumentation, layered vocals, and lush strings, embellished by heavy percussion and dark guitar tones, draws comparisons to Crosby, Stills, & Nash, Led Zeppelin, and Fleetwood Mac. • $19.50 SHOCK AND AWE WITH ADRENALINE KID AND FAR FROM ROYAL • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM • All ages. • $6 QUANTIC PRESENTS: TROPICAL ELEVATION NORTH AMERICAN TOUR • The Concourse • 10PM • Presented by Midnight Voyage Productions. 18 and up. • $10 J.P. HARRIS AND THE TOUGH CHOICES • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • In short, J.P. Harris plays Country Music. Not “Americana,” not “Roots,” “Folk,” or any other number of monikers used to describe a slew of spin-off genres; he plays from the foundation of these styles, the music that has influenced four generations of songwriters. In a world where prefixes have been added to the term “Country,” JP simply sticks to the old-fashioned sounds that have called to him. Referencing influences would be like describing each stitch in a quilt; every scrap of fabric tells a story of how the weathered and comfortable blanket came to be… • $5 THE JON WHITLOCK TRIO WITH KEVIN ABERNATHY • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE THE JEFF JOPLIN BAND • Two Doors Down • 10PM THE VIBRASLAPS • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up.

Saturday, March 5 KNOXTACULAR • Bijou Theatre • 1PM • Join us for a true Knoxtacular: all day, all live, all local! The Knoxville Mercury, the The Knoxville History Project, and community-supported radio station WDVX present a free, day-long variety show in support of Knoxville’s independent voices. Featuring Knoxville musicians, poets, comedians, and more, the show will be broadcast live on WDVX 89.9 FM—it’s a radiothon, folks! We’ll be raising funds to help keep WDVX on the air and the Mercury on the streets. • $10 UT JAZZ FESTIVAL • University of Tennessee • Workshops, lectures, master classes, and performances, headlined by the UT Big Band with trumpeter Terell Stafford at 6 p.m. at the Haslam Music Center. • FREE WENDY JO GIRVIN WITH THE QUIET HOLLERS • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-aweek lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE KATY FREE • Red Piano Lounge • 6PM ANGELA PERLEY AND THE HOWLIN’ MOONS • Sugarlands Distilling Co. • 7PM • FREE THE BING BROTHERS FEATURING JAKE KRACK • Laurel Theater • 8PM • For over 40 years, the Bing Brothers have played their hard-driving brand of string band music formed in the West Virginia mountains, especially drawing inspiration from the legendary Hammons family February 25, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 27

CALENDAR of Pocahontas County. • $14 LA BASURA DEL DIABLO WITH HE CASKET CREATURES AND BACK FOR BLOOD • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM • All ages.

WILL BOYD • Red Piano Lounge • 9PM JOSHUA POWELL AND THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE EXIT 60 • Two Doors Down • 10PM Sunday, March 6 SHIFFLETT’S JAZZ BENEDICT • The Bistro at the Bijou • 12PM • Live jazz. • FREE SUNDAY JAZZ BRUNCH • Downtown Grill and Brewery • 12:45PM • Knoxville’s coolest jazz artists perform every Sunday. • FREE SCHOOL OF ROCK EDUCATION ROCK BENEFIT • The International • 5PM • The School of Rock’s benefit for the Rock School Scholarship Fund features Emi Sunshine, Brock Butler of Perpetual Groove, Autumn Reflection, State Street Rhythm Section, I’m in Trouble, and comedian Alex Strokes. • $10 JON STEEL • Red Piano Lounge • 7PM HOUNDMOUTH • Bijou Theatre • 8PM • In cramped clubs and big theaters alike, Houndmouth earned a reputation as a must-see act, their hooks, energy and charisma making them feel like a lifelong friend you’d just met. • $16.50 MIKE MCGILL AND THE REFILLS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 8PM

Thursday, Feb. 25 - Sunday, March 6

OPEN MIC AND SONGWRITER NIGHTS

Thursday, Feb. 25 SCOTTISH MUSIC SESSION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7:15PM • Held on the second and fourth Thursdays of each month.

• FREE Friday, Feb. 26 TIME WARP TEA ROOM OPEN SONGWRITER NIGHT • Time Warp Tea Room • 7PM • Songwriter Night at Time Warp Tea Room runs on the second and fourth Friday of every month. Show up around 7 p.m. with your instrument in tow and sign up to share a couple of original songs with a community of friends down in Happy Holler. • FREE Tuesday, March 1 OLD-TIME JAM SESSION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7:15PM • Hosted by Sarah Pickle. • FREE PRESERVATION PUB SINGER/SONGWRITER NIGHT • Preservation Pub • 7 p.m. • 21 and up. • FREE Wednesday, March 2 TIME WARP TEA ROOM OLD-TIME JAM • Time Warp Tea Room • 7PM • Regular speed old-time/fiddle jam every Wednesday from 7-9 p.m. at the Time Warp Tea Room. All instruments and skill levels welcome.

BRACKINS BLUES JAM • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 9PM • A weekly open session hosted by Tommie John. • FREE

Thursday, March 3 BREWHOUSE BLUES JAM • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM • Join Robert Higginbotham & the Smoking Section at the Open Chord for the Brewhouse Blues Jam. Bring your instrument, sign up, and join the jammers. We supply drums and a full backline of amps. Sign-ups begin at 7pm before the show. Held the first Thursday of every month.

IRISH MUSIC SESSION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7:15PM • Held on the first and third Thursdays of each month. • FREE

DJ AND DANCE NIGHTS

Sunday, Feb. 28 SUNDAY SCHOOL GOTH DANCE PARTY • Pilot Light • 10PM • 18 and up. • $5 Friday, March 4 TEKNOX V. 26 • The Birdhouse • 9PM • Sounds of the underground—techno, house, and more, with John Templeton, from Denver, Co., and Gregory Tarrants. 21 and up. • FREE

CLASSICAL MUSIC

Thursday, Feb. 25 UT SYMPHONIC BAND, CONCERT BAND, AND WIND

ENSEMBLE CONCERT • University of Tennessee Alumni Memorial Building • 8PM • FREE Friday, Feb. 26 UT TENNESSEE CELLO WORKSHOP • University of Tennessee Natalie L. Haslam Music Center • Intensive, joyful exploration of many facets of cello playing through master classes, technique seminars, lectures, ensemble playing, concerts, and competitions. For more information or to register: www.music.utk.edu/tcw • FREE KNOXVILLE OPERA: ‘HANSEL AND GRETEL’ • Tennessee Theatre • 8PM • Knoxville Opera is pleased to announce the return of Humperdinck’s whimsical production, Hansel and Gretel, to the historic Tennessee Theatre. This beloved candy-filled adventure will once again delight audiences with the story of two mischievous children who venture deep into an enchanted forest. For a full synopsis of the production and complete list of cast members, please visit KnoxvilleOpera.com. Tickets, which start at $21 for adults and $13 for students, can be purchased online or by calling (865) 524-0795, ext. 28. • $21-$99 • See preview on page 24.

Saturday, Feb. 27 UT TENNESSEE CELLO WORKSHOP • University of Tennessee Natalie L. Haslam Music Center • For more information or to register: www.music.utk.edu/tcw • FREE Sunday, Feb. 28 UT TENNESSEE CELLO WORKSHOP • University of Tennessee Natalie L. Haslam Music Center • For more information or to register: www.music.utk.edu/tcw • FREE

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Streaming 24.7.365 at WUTKRADIO.COM 28

KNOXVILLE MERCURY February 25, 2016

Thursday, Feb. 25 - Sunday, March 6

KNOXVILLE OPERA: ‘HANSEL AND GRETEL’ • Tennessee Theatre • 2:30PM • Knoxville Opera is pleased to announce the return of Humperdinck’s whimsical production, Hansel and Gretel, to the historic Tennessee Theatre.

This beloved candy-filled adventure will once again delight audiences with the story of two mischievous children who venture deep into an enchanted forest. For a full synopsis of the production and complete list of cast members, please visit KnoxvilleOpera.com. Tickets, which start at $21 for adults and $13 for students, can be purchased online or by calling (865) 524-0795, ext. 28. • $21-$99 • See preview on page 24.

CALENDAR

THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: “THE LAST FIVE YEARS” • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 8PM • An emotionally powerful and intimate musical about two New Yorkers in their twenties who fall in and out of love over the course of five years. The show’s unconventional structure consists of Cathy, the woman, telling her story backwards while Jamie, the man, tells his story chronologically; the two characters only meet once, at their wedding in the middle of the show.

Feb. 12-28. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $15 Friday, Feb. 26

KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE: ‘TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD’ • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 7PM • The unforgettable Pulitzer Prize-winning novel comes to life on the KCT stage, with its unique mix of warm nostalgia and frank realism. The lives of young “Scout” Finch and her big brother Jim are about to change forever, when their father Atticus, a lawyer, is appointed to defend a black man accused of attacking a white teenage girl. Feb. 26-March 13. Visit knoxvillechildrenstheatre.com. • $12 TENNESSEE CHILDREN’S DANCE ENSEMBLE CONCERT • Knoxville Civic Auditorium • 8:15PM • The Tennessee

Tuesday, March 1 UT FACULTY BRASS QUINTET RECITAL • University of Tennessee Natalie L. Haslam Music Center • 8PM • Featuring Cathy Leach (trumpet), Katie Johnson (horn), Alex van Duuran (trombone) and Alexander Lapins(tuba). • FREE Thursday, March 3 KEVIN CLASS: COMPLETE PIANO SONATAS OF MOZART, PROGRAM TWO • University of Tennessee Natalie L. Haslam Music Center • 8PM • FREE Friday, March 4 NORTH CAROLINA GREENSBORO CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE • University of Tennessee Natalie L. Haslam Music Center • 8PM • FREE Saturday, March 5 DUENDE • Episcopal Church of the Good Samaritan • 7PM • Duende is an exciting duo based in Cleveland, Ohio, which combines the sounds of the classical guitar and the saxophone. Visit www.knoxvilleguitar.org. • $20 Sunday, March 6 UT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA • University of Tennessee Alumni Memorial Building • 4PM • FREE

THEATER AND DANCE

Thursday, Feb. 25 CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘TITUS ANDRONICUS’ • Clarence Brown Theatre • 7PM • Is revenge justice? A victorious general returns home, having already lost many sons in the war, only to find political chaos and the emperor marrying his enemy. This sets into motion a cycle of violent and bloody revenge in which the general and his foe lose more than either one could ever imagine. For mature audiences. Feb. 10-28.

CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘A LESSON BEFORE DYING’ • Carousel Theatre • 7:30PM • It’s 1948 in a small plantation community in the heart of Cajun country. A young man, jailed for a murder he did not commit, will soon lose his life and has lost his self-respect. A young teacher, with most of his life ahead of him, has lost respect for the situation in which he lives. Both men teach each other the lessons they need to face their very different futures with dignity and strength. Feb. 24-March 16. Visit clarencebrowntheatre.com. • See Spotlight on page 32.

Photo by Jimmy Fontaine

Monday, Feb. 29 PRO ARTE QUARTET • University of Tennessee Natalie L. Haslam Music Center • 8PM • The Pro Arte Quartet was founded in 1911-12 by students at the Brussels Conservatory. The Pro Arte became the faculty string quartet at UW-Madison in the late 1950s, an appointment that continues to the present day. Today, in addition to widely acclaimed performances of standard classical repertoire, the Pro Arte continues its tradition of championing new music. • FREE

KEVIN GATES The International (940 Blackstock Ave.) • Sunday, Feb. 28 and Monday, Feb. 29 • 8 p.m. • $30-$100 • internationalknox.com

This could be Kevin Gates’ breakout moment. The Louisiana rapper is celebrating more than a few milestones as he rides high into Knoxville. This month marks a birthday, his 30th, preceded by a debut studio album, Islah, that catapulted to number two on the Billboard 200 chart after its release on Jan. 29. He’s also newly married, having gotten hitched in October to Shadreka Haynes.

(That family focus already shows up on Islah, named after his daughter.)

It’s been a solid run for Gates, one that many fans and music critics say has been a long time coming. The Baton Rouge native spent much of 2015 making headlines for off-stage antics instead of his music. He’s still to have his day in court for allegedly kicking a female fan in Florida after she apparently grabbed his crotch during a performance, and he’s sparked viral outrage over past comments about him knowingly dating his own cousin and his affinity for eating booty.

Yet those outtakes don’t seem to have slowed his musical progression.

For several years running he’s been tapped as one of hip-hop’s rising stars—he even made XXL’s Freshman Class in 2014, along with Chance the Rapper and Rich Homie Quan, and he’s earned a cult following through a barrage of mixtapes and well-honed, melodic lyrics set to booming trap anthems. He’s cut his teeth on the gritty dope-boy stylings the genre is known for, but he built his name on spitting straight talk, blurring hard truths with themes of life and loving, often in a single song. Islah manages to pack a polished sound and sentimental edge, often presenting dueling narratives of street life, family, loyalty, and love, marking his evolution from street hustler to wordsmith. Gates will be sticking around an extra night in Knoxville to offer what he’s got—a second performance has been scheduled after his Feb. 28 concert sold out weeks in advance. With Young Greatness and OG Boobie Black. (Clay Duda)

February 25, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 29

CALENDAR Children’s Dance Ensemble will open its 35th season with dances by Abby Williams, Courtney Kohlhepp and Karlie Budge, as well as a new work by Amy Wilson. • $10 CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘TITUS ANDRONICUS’ • Clarence Brown Theatre • 7PM • Feb. 10-28. • Visit clarencebrowntheatre.com.

CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘A LESSON BEFORE DYING’ • Carousel Theatre • 7:30PM • Feb. 24-March 16. V isit clarencebrowntheatre.com.

THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: “THE LAST FIVE YEARS” • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 8PM • Feb. 12-28. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $15 MARYVILLE COLLEGE: ‘SHE KILLS MONSTERS’ • Clayton Center for the Arts ( Maryville) • 8PM • A comedic romp into the world of fantasy role-playing games, She Kills Monsters tells the story of Agnes Evans as she leaves her childhood home in Ohio following the death of her teenage sister, Tilly. When Agnes finds Tilly’s Dungeons & Dragons notebook, however, she stumbles into a journey of discovery and action-packed adventure in the imaginary world that was Tilly’s refuge. Feb. 26-27. • $10 Saturday, Feb. 27 KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE: ‘TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD’ • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 1PM and 5PM • Feb. 26-March 13. Visit knoxvillechildrenstheatre.com. • $12 TENNESSEE CHILDREN’S DANCE ENSEMBLE CONCERT • Knoxville Civic Auditorium • 2:30PM and 8:15PM • The Tennessee Children’s Dance Ensemble will open its 35th season with dances by Abby Williams, Courtney Kohlhepp and Karlie Budge, as well as a new work by

Thursday, Feb. 25 - Sunday, March 6

Amy Wilson. • $10 MARYVILLE COLLEGE: ‘SHE KILLS MONSTERS’ • Clayton Center for the Arts • 2PM and 8PM • A comedic romp into the world of fantasy role-playing games, She Kills Monsters tells the story of Agnes Evans as she leaves her childhood home in Ohio following the death of her teenage sister, Tilly. When Agnes finds Tilly’s Dungeons & Dragons notebook, however, she stumbles into a journey of discovery and action-packed adventure in the imaginary world that was Tilly’s refuge. Feb. 26-27. • $10 CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘TITUS ANDRONICUS’ • Clarence Brown Theatre • 7PM • Feb. 10-28. • Visit clarencebrowntheatre.com.

CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘A LESSON BEFORE DYING’ • Carousel Theatre • 7:30PM • Feb. 24-March 16. V isit clarencebrowntheatre.com.

THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: “THE LAST FIVE YEARS” • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 8PM • Feb. 12-28. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $15 AQUILA THEATRE: SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE’S ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES • Clayton Center for the Arts (Maryville) • 7:30PM • Aquila Theatre brings legendary sleuth, Sherlock Holmes to life in this witty, fast paced production.

Sunday, Feb. 28 KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE: ‘TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD’ • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 3PM • Feb. 26-March 13.

Visit knoxvillechildrenstheatre.com. • $12 CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘TITUS ANDRONICUS’ • Clarence Brown Theatre • 2PM • Feb. 10-28. • Visit

SUPPORTS INDEPENDENT LOCAL JOURNALISM! 30

KNOXVILLE MERCURY February 25, 2016

clarencebrowntheatre.com.

THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: “THE LAST FIVE YEARS” • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 3PM • Feb. 12-28. Visit theatreknoxville.com. • $13 CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘A LESSON BEFORE DYING’ • Carousel Theatre • 2PM • Feb. 24-March 16.

Tuesday, March 1 MOSCOW FESTIVAL BALLET: ‘SLEEPING BEAUTY’ • Niswonger Performing Arts Center (Greeneville) • 7PM • Performed by the Moscow Festival Ballet, Sleeping Beauty is a supreme demonstration of steel point work, sharply accented spinning turns, soaring leaps, high extensions, and daring lifts. Princess Aurora, condemned at her christening by an evil fairy to prick her finger and die on her 16th birthday, is saved by the gift of the good Lilac Fairy, who declares the princess will only sleep until awakened by the kiss of a prince. • $25-$35 Wednesday, March 2 CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘A LESSON BEFORE DYING’ • Carousel Theatre • 7:30PM • Feb. 24-March 16. V isit clarencebrowntheatre.com.

Thursday, March 3 KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE: ‘TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD’ • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 7PM • Feb. 26-March 13.

Visit knoxvillechildrenstheatre.com. • $12 CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘A LESSON BEFORE DYING’ • Carousel Theatre • 7:30PM • Feb. 24-March 16. V isit clarencebrowntheatre.com.

Friday, March 4

KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE: ‘TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD’ • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 7PM • Feb. 26-March 13.

Visit knoxvillechildrenstheatre.com. • $12 CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: ‘A LESSON BEFORE DYING’ • Carousel Theatre • 7:30PM • Feb. 24-March 16. V isit clarencebrowntheatre.com.

TENNESSEE STAGE COMPANY: ‘THE CAST LIST’ • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 8PM • TSC closes its annual New Play Festival with a world premiere of Gayle Greene’s play about a director’s worst nightmare. March 4-20. Visit tennesseestage.com. • $15

COMEDY AND SPOKEN WORD

Sunday, Feb. 28 UPSTAIRS UNDERGROUND COMEDY • Preservation Pub • 8PM • A weekly comedy open mic.

Monday, Feb. 29 QED COMEDY LABORATORY • Pilot Light • 7:30PM • QED ComedyLaboratory is a weekly show with different theme every week that combines stand-up, improv, sketch, music and other types of performance and features some of the funniest people in Knoxville and parts unknown. It’s weird and experimental. There is no comedy experience in town that is anything like this and it’s also a ton of fun. Pay what you want. Free, but donations are accepted. • FREE Tuesday, March 1

CALENDAR

FESTIVALS

Friday, Feb. 26 47TH ANNUAL JUBILEE FESTIVAL • Laurel Theater • 7PM • JCA showcases some of the finest practitioners of mountain music across the generations, home grown in our own back yard. Friday and Saturday night we will have old time string bands and song and plenty of jamming in the basement. The festival concludes with Old Harp Singing on Sunday. This year’s performers include the Lost Fiddle String Band, Kelle Jolly, the Tennessee Stifflegs, John Alvis and Friends, the Knox County Jug Stompers, Y’uns, Camp Hollow String Band, Possum Crossing, Roy Harper, Mike & Marcia Bryant, the Bearded, and the Mumbillies. • FREE-$12 Saturday, Feb. 27 TENNESSEE WINTER BEER FEST • The Carriage House (Townsend) • 3PM • Breweries that will be in attendance for the 2016 event are Saw Works Brewing Company, Bluetick Brewery, Fanatic Brewing Company, Depot Street Brewing, Yee-Haw Brewing Company, Balter Beerworks, Crafty Bastard Brewery, Blackhorse Brewery, Johnson City Brewing Company, Holston River Brewing Company, Last Days of Autumn Brewing and Calfkiller Brewing Company. Tickets can be purchased online at www. tennesseewinterbeerfest.com. • $30-$60 47TH ANNUAL JUBILEE FESTIVAL • Laurel Theater • 7PM • JCA showcases some of the finest practitioners of mountain music across the generations, home grown in our own back yard. • FREE-$12 Sunday, Feb. 28 47TH ANNUAL JUBILEE FESTIVAL • Laurel Theater • 2PM • JCA showcases some of the finest practitioners of mountain music across the generations, home grown in our own back yard. • FREE-$12 REGAL HOLLYWOOD’S NIGHT OUT • Regal Riviera Stadium 8 • 7PM • Guests will experience the red carpet and can participate in a green screen photo op like the Hollywood stars. The event’s silent auction will include highly sought after items such as autographed movie posters, jewelry, movie memorabilia, and more. Tickets are $35 and can be purchased at the Regal Riviera box office or online at Fandango. All proceeds will fund Variety’s Kids on the Go! program, which provides assistance to children with mobility concerns. • $35 Saturday, March 5 KNOXTACULAR • Bijou Theatre • 1PM • Join us for a true Knoxtacular: all day, all live, all local! The Knoxville Mercury, the The Knoxville History Project, and community-supported radio station WDVX present a free, day-long variety show in support of Knoxville’s

independent voices. Featuring Knoxville musicians, poets, comedians, and more, the show will be broadcast live on WDVX 89.9 FM—it’s a radiothon, folks! We’ll be raising funds to help keep WDVX on the air and the Mercury on the streets. • $10 RICO STACHE BASH • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 8:30PM • The Rico Stache Bash is a fun charity event for the UT Small Animal Oncology Dept. created in honor of Rico, a very special dog.

FILM SCREENINGS

Monday, Feb. 29 THE BIRDHOUSE WALK-IN THEATER • The Birdhouse • 8:15PM • A weekly free movie screening. • FREE Tuesday, March 1 TWIN PEAKS VIEWING PARTY • The Birdhouse • 7PM • Bi-weekly viewing parties for every single episode of the cult TV series. Attendees encouraged to dress as their favorite characters. Trivia, Twin Peaks-themed giveaways, donuts and coffee, plus some surprises. Trivia begins at 7:00pm with viewing to follow at 8:00pm. • FREE PUBLIC CINEMA: ‘FIELD NIGGAS’ • Pilot Light • 7:30PM • Visit publiccinema.org. • FREE • See review on page 25.

Jude Carl Vincent as Jefferson; by Elizabeth Aaron

OPEN MIC STAND-UP COMEDY • Longbranch Saloon • 8PM • Come laugh until you cry at the Longbranch every Tuesday night. Doors open at 8:30, first comic at 9. No cover charge, all are welcome. Aspiring or experienced comics interested in joining in the fun email us at longbranch.info@gmail.com to learn more, or simply come to the show a few minutes early. • FREE EINSTEIN SIMPLIFIED • Scruffy City Hall • 8PM • Einstein Simplified Comedy performs live comedy improv at Scruffy City Hall. It’s just like Whose Line Is It Anyway, but you get to make the suggestions. Show starts at 8:15, get there early for the best seats. No cover. • FREE CASUAL COMEDY • Casual Pint (Hardin Valley) • 7PM • A monthly comedy showcase at Casual Pint-Hardin Valley featuring a mixture of local and touring comedians.

Wednesday, March 2 SCRUFFY CITY CINEPUB • Scruffy City Hall • 10PM • A weekly program of movie screenings from the Scruffy City Film and Music Festival, Knoxville Horror Film Festival, and more.

SPORTS AND RECREATION

Thursday, Feb. 25 CYCOLOGY BICYCLES THURSDAY MORNING RIDE • Cycology Bicycles • 10AM • Join Cycology Bicycles every Thursday morning for a road ride with two group options. A Group does a 2 to 3 hour ride at 20+ pace; B group does an intermediate ride at 15/18 mph average. Weather permitting. cycologybicycles.com. • FREE FLEET FEET GROUP RUN/WALK • Fleet Feet Sports Knoxville • 6PM • Join us every Thursday night at our store for a fun group run/walk. We have all levels come out, so no matter what your speed you’ll have someone to keep you company.

Our 30 - 60 minute route varies week by week in the various neighborhoods and greenways around the store, so be sure to show up on time so you can join up with the group. All levels welcome. fleetfeetknoxville.com. • FREE NORTH KNOXVILLE BEER RUNNERS • Central Flats and Taps • 6PM • Meet us at Central Flats and Taps every Thursday night for a fun and easy run leading us right through Saw Works for a midway beer. • FREE RIVER SPORTS THURSDAY EVENING GREENWAY BIKE RIDE • River Sports Outfitters • 6PM • Every Thursday night from 6 to 7:30 join River Sports Outfitters on an easy paced, beginner friendly Greenway Ride. Bring your own bike or rent one for $15. Lights are mandatory on your bikes from September through March. After ride join us at the store for $2 pints. riversportsoutfitters.com/events. • FREE KNOXVILLE BICYCLE COMPANY THURSDAY GRAVEL GRINDER • North Boundary Trails • 6:30PM • Join Knoxville Bicycle Company every Thursday evening for their gravel grinder.

Meets at 6:30 pm at North Boundary in Oak Ridge, park at the guard shack. Cross bikes and hardtails are perfect.

It’s 1948 in a small plantation community in the heart of Cajun country. A young man, jailed for a murder he did not commit, will soon lose his life and has lost his self-respect. A young teacher, with most of his life ahead of him, has lost respect for the situation in which he lives.

Both men teach each other the lessons they need to face their very different futures with dignity and strength.

Directed by Andrea J. Dymond

February 25, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 31

CALENDAR Bring lights. Regroups as necessary. Call shop for more details. Weather permitting - call the store if weather is questionable. knoxvillebicycleco.com. • CEDAR BLUFF CYCLES THURSDAY GREENWAY RIDE • Cedar Bluff Cycles • 6:30PM • Join us every Thursday evening for a greenway ride at an intermediate pace of 14-15 mph. Must have lights. Weather permitting. cedarbluffcycles.net. • FREE Friday, Feb. 26 RIVER SPORTS FRIDAY NIGHT GREENWAY RUN • River Sports Outfitters • 6PM • Greenway run from the store every Friday evening from 6-7:30 pm. Work up a thirst then join us for $2 pints in the store afterwards. riversportsoutfitters.com. • FREE Saturday, Feb. 27 SMOKY MOUNTAIN HIKING CLUB: OLD SUGARLANDS AND TWIN CREEK TRAILS • Smoky Mountain Hiking Club • 8AM • This hike starts across from the Sugarlands Visitors Center & follows the route of the first paved road over the Smokies. We’ll pass the site of two CCC Camps while climbing to the Cherokee Orchard Road which we’ll take to the Bud Ogle Cabin. From there we take Twin Creeks into Gatlinburg where some may want to get a bite to eat.

Return to Sugarlands Visitors Center via the Gatlinburg Trail. Hike: 10 miles, rated moderate. Meet at Alcoa Food City, 121 North Hall Road, at 8:00 AM. Drive 70 miles RT. Leader: David Smith, dcshiker@bellsouth.net • FREE Sunday, Feb. 28 KNOXVILLE HARDCOURT BIKE POLO • Sam Duff Memorial Park • 1PM • Don’t know how to play? Just bring your bike — we have mallets to share and will teach you the game.

• FREE Monday, Feb. 29

Thursday, Feb. 25 - Sunday, March 6

KTC GROUP RUN • Mellow Mushroom • 6PM • Visit ktc.org.

• FREE BEARDEN BEER MARKET FUN RUN • Bearden Beer Market • 6:30PM • Visit beardenbeermarket.com. • FREE Tuesday, March 1 CYTOLOGY BICYCLES TUESDAY MORNING RIDE • Cycology Bicycles • 10:30AM • cycologybicycles.com. • FREE HARD KNOX TUESDAY FUN RUN • Hard Knox Pizzeria • 6:30PM • Join Hard Knox Pizzeria every Tuesday evening (rain or shine) for a 2-3 mile fun run. Burn calories. Devour pizza.

Quench thirst. Follow us on Facebook. • FREE CEDAR BLUFF CYCLES TUESDAY GREENWAY RIDE • Cedar Bluff Cycles • 6:30PM • cedarbluffcycles.net. • FREE Wednesday, March 2 KTC GROUP RUN • Runner’s Market • 5:30PM • Visit ktc.org.

• FREE FOUNTAIN CITY PEDALERS SHARPS RIDGE MOUNTAIN BIKE RIDE • Fountain City Pedaler • 6PM • Visit fcpedaler.com. • FREE

ART

Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts 556 Parkway (Gatlinburg) JAN. 16-MARCH 11: Touch: Interactive Craft, Arrowmont’s biannual national juried exhibition.

Art Market Gallery 422 S. Gay St. FEB. 2-28: heART 2 heART, a Valentine’s exhibit. MARCH 1-27: Artwork by Lynda Best and Ron Smith. An opening reception will be held on Friday, March 4, from 5:30-9

CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: A LESSON BEFORE DYING Carousel Theatre (1714 Andy Holt Ave.) • Wednesday, Feb. 24-Sunday, March 13 • $22-$42 • clarencebrowntheatre.com

The 2015-16 Clarence Brown Theatre season has been one of notable adaptations: The 39 Steps, Of Mice and Men, A Christmas Carol, The Santaland Diaries.

Even South Pacific, which wraps up the season later this spring, is Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical version of James Michener’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Tales of the South Pacific.

The current production of Romulus Linney’s A Lesson Before Dying at the Carousel Theatre follows the pattern as well, offering audiences a chance to engage the work both as the play and as the 1993 novel by Ernest J. Gaines on which it is based. CBT has partnered with the Knox County Public Library on a series of tie-in programs. Commissioned by the Alabama Shakespeare Festival in 2000, the story is set in a small Louisiana town in 1948, where a young man, Jefferson, a victim of circumstances, is falsely accused of murder and sentenced to the electric chair.

Jefferson’s godmother enlists the help of a local plantation school teacher, Grant Wiggins, to help the young man face death. In doing so, Wiggins faces the conflicts in his own life and a search for its purpose. In the CBT production, the role of Jefferson is played by Jude Carl Vincent, the role of Wiggins by Trequon Tate, and the role of Miss Emma Glenn, Jefferson’s godmother, by Celeste Williams. (Alan Sherrod)

32

KNOXVILLE MERCURY February 25, 2016

p.m.

and Facets of Modern and Contemporary Glass.

Bliss Home 24 Market Square JAN. 1-FEB. 29: Artwork by Ocean Starr Cline. MARCH 4-31: Artwork by Lindsey Teague. An opening reception will be held on Friday, March 4, from 6-9 p.m.

Liz-Beth and Co. 7240 Kingston Pike FEB. 23-MARCH 12: Contemporary American Folk Art, featuring work by Mike Ham, Steven McGuvney, Bill Cook Jr., Leslie Whitaker Evans, and Deb Guess.

Broadway Studios and Gallery 1127 Broadway FEB. 5-MARCH 1: Alley Cat by Marianne Ziegler. MARCH 4-27: Peep Show!, featuring figure work by local artists.

An opening reception will be held on Friday, March 4, from 5-9 p.m.

McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture 1327 Circle Park Drive JAN. 23-MAY 22: Maya: Lords of Time. ONGOING: The Flora and Fauna of Catesby, Mason, and Audubon and Life on the Roman Frontier.

Central Collective 923 N. Central St. MARCH 4-29: Just Blousing, new paintings by Beth Meadows. An opening reception will be held on Friday, March 4, from 7-10 p.m.

Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church 2931 Kingston Pike FEB. 12-MARCH 30: Artwork by Heather Hartman and Jessica Payne.

Clayton Center for the Arts 502 E. Lamar Alexander Parkway MARCH 1-25: Peace Is Patriotic: A Soldier’s (mis) Remembrances, new works by Mark Runge (a reception will be held on Friday, March 25, from 6-8 p.m.) and A Phrenology Study of a Mad Man by Mark Hall (a reception will be held on Monday, March 21, from 4-6 p.m.).

Westminster Presbyterian Church Schiller Gallery 6500 S. Northshore Drive JAN. 12-FEB. 28: Paintings by Jennifer Brickey.

Downtown Gallery 106 S. Gay St. FEB. 5-27: Artwork by Larry Brown. MARCH 4-26: Artwork by Allison Berkoy and Jonathan Lukens. An opening reception will be held on Friday, March 4, from 5-9 p.m.

East Tennessee History Museum 601 S. Gay St. THROUGH MARCH 2: Bud Albers Art Recollections: Works From Life and Travels; THROUGH MARCH 20: Celebrating a Life in Tennessee Art: Lloyd Branson 1853-1925 Emporium Center for Arts and Culture 100 S. Gay St. FEB. 5-26: Knoxville Photography Collective exhibit and National Juried Exhibition 2016. MARCH 4-25: Artwork

by Melanie Reid; Three Views of Reality, new paintings

by Brandon Douglas, Catherine Haverkamp, and Seth Haverkamp; and artwork by the Knoxville Watercolor Society. An opening reception will be held on Friday, March 4, from 5-9 p.m.

Ewing Gallery 1715 Volunteer Blvd.

FEB. 29-MARCH 21: UT Student Art Competition. A reception and awards ceremony will be held on Monday, March 29, at 6 p.m.

Flow: A Brew Parlor 603 W. Main St. FEB. 5-29: Artwork by Saul Young.

Knoxville Museum of Art 1050 World’s Fair Park Drive JAN. 29-APRIL 17: Knoxville Seven, an exhibit of artwork by an influential group of Knoxville artists from the 1950s and ’60s, including Buck Ewing, Carl Sublett, and more. See cover story on page 14. ONGOING: Higher Ground: A Century of the Visual Arts in Tennessee; Currents: Recent Art From East Tennessee and Beyond;

LECTURES, READINGS, AND BOOK SIGNINGS

Thursday, Feb. 25 TED FISHER: “THE ONCE AND FUTURE MAYA: CULTURAL REVIVAL AND RESURGENCE IN THE MODERN WORLD” • McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture • 5:15PM • As part of programming related to the current special exhibition, Maya: Lords of Time, the McClung Museum presents Ted Fisher, Professor of Anthropology at Vanderbilt University, giving the talk, “The Once and Future Maya: Cultural Revival and Resurgence in the Modern World.” • FREE Friday, Feb. 26 TOM JESTER AND DON DUDENBOSTEL: ‘POPCORN SUTTON: THE MAKING AND MARKETING OF A HILLBILLY HERO’ • McScrooge’s Wine & Spirits • 3PM • McScrooge’s will be pouring free samples of Popcorn Sutton’s Tennessee White Whiskey, and John Lunn, master distiller of Sutton’s now-legal moonshine, will be on-hand to sign bottles and answer questions about the product. Also on-hand will be Tom Jester and Don Dudenbostel, author and photographer, respectively, of the book “Popcorn Sutton: The Making and Marketing of a Hillbilly Hero.” • FREE UT SCIENCE FORUM • Thompson-Boling Arena • 12PM • The Science Forum is a weekly brown-bag lunch series that allows professors and area scientists to discuss their research with the general public in a conversational presentation. Free and open to the public, each Science Forum consists of a 40-minute presentation followed by a Q-and-A session. Attendees are encouraged to bring their own lunch or purchase it at the cafe in Thompson-Boling Arena. The Science Forum, sponsored by the UT Office of Research and Quest magazine, is an initiative to raise awareness of the research, scholarship and creative activity happening on campus. • FREE Sunday, Feb. 28 CONVERSATION MATTERS: HOMOSEXUALITY AND THE CHURCH • First United Methodist Church Maryville • 5PM • When it comes to debating tough topics, Conversation Matters! That’s the idea behind a new series of events at

Thursday, Feb. 25 - Sunday, March 6

1st United Methodist Church - Maryville. Dr. Phillip Sherman, a Hebrew Bible scholar and United Methodist, leads a discussion on “Homosexuality and the Church.”

Everyone is invited to learn how this subject has been debated over the years in the United Methodist Church at a time when the church’s top legislative body gets set to meet this spring. More information on these events is available online at http://1stchurch.org/happening-at-1st/ conversation-matters. • FREE

UT HUMANITIES CENTER CONVERSATIONS AND COCKTAILS SERIES • The Grill at Highlands Row • 6PM • The series provides the community an opportunity to interact with guest scholars as they discuss history while enjoying special dinner and appetizer selections. All discussions are free. Dinner reservations are required and seating is limited. Tore Olsson, assistant professor of history: “How East Tennessee Transformed the World: TVA’s Global Career after WWII.”

Monday, Feb. 29 UT COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN 2016 LECTURE SERIES • University of Tennessee Art and Architecture Building • 5:30PM • The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, College of Architecture and Design will host internationally renowned architects and designers as guest lecturers during the 2016 spring semester. David Benjamin, principal of the Living and assistant professor of planning and preservation in the Graduate School of Architecture at Columbia University. • FREE SOUTHERN APPALACHIA SPEAKER SERIES: “THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SOUTHERN APPALACHIA” • Blount County Public Library • 7PM • Southern Appalachia is rich in history and natural beauty, so the library is hosting a series of four programs that will emphasize the natural history, indigenous peoples, European immigration, and the resultant culture and social history of our area. The first speaker, Dr. Paul Threadgill, Professor of Biology at Maryville College, will cover “The Natural History of Southern Appalachia.” • FREE

FAMILY AND KIDS’ EVENTS

Tuesday, March 1

Thursday, Feb. 25 BABY BOOKWORMS • Lawson McGee Public Library • 11AM • For infants to age 2, must be accompanied by a parent or guardian. • FREE Friday, Feb. 26 S.T.E.A.M. KIDS • Blount County Public Library • 4PM • Every week will be a different adventure, from science experiments to art projects and everything in between.

Materials will be limited and available on a first-come, first-served basis. For grades K-5. • FREE Saturday, Feb. 27 SATURDAY STORIES AND SONGS • Lawson McGee Public Library • 11AM • A weekly music and storytelling session for kids. • FREE FAMILY FUN DAY: AFRICAN-AMERICAN HISTORY • McClung

CALENDAR

Museum of Natural History and Culture • 1PM • Join us for free a free Family Fun Day featuring activities, crafts, tours, and more. We’ll celebrate African American History Month by learning more about African-American history.

All materials will be provided. The program is free and open to the public. Reservations are not necessary. • FREE Sunday, Feb. 28 WINTER ICE SOLSTICE • Niswonger Performing Arts Center (Greeneville) • 2PM • Experience chilling entertainment when Winter Ice Solstice visits the NPAC stage! For the first time ever at NPAC, experience an event that will have you frozen to your seat with excitement while watching professional ice skaters glide across the stage in a unique performance like none other. Take a peek into this winter wonderland and enjoy a magical performance the whole family will love. • $25-$35

CLASSES AND WORKSHOPS

Thursday, Feb. 25 GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 12PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@gmail.com. Donations accepted.

BLOUNT COUNTY LIBRARY BASIC COMPUTER CLASSES • Blount County Public Library • 2PM • Basic computer classes are offered, free, at the library Jan. 6-March 10. • FREE

BELLY DANCE LEVELS 1 AND 2 • Knox Dance Worx • 8PM • Call (865) 898-2126 or email alexia@alexia-dance.com. • $12 UT COLLEGE OF LAW FREE INCOME TAX PREPARATION ASSISTANCE • University of Tennessee • 5PM • As part of the IRS Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program, students will offer free tax preparation help to members of the community. The program runs through Thursday, April 14, on Tuesdays and Thursdays in Suite 157 of the College of Law. For more information about the VITA program at UT Law, contact Morgan at 865-974-2492 or rmorgan2@utk.edu. • FREE MORE SPONGE, LESS DUCK: HOW TO MAKE A WATER-HEALTHY LANDSCAPE • University of Tennessee Arboretum • 6PM • The program will be presented by Dr. Andrea Ludwig, Assistant Professor at the Department of Biosystems and Engineering and Soil Science at the UT Institute of Agriculture. An ecological engineer, Dr. Ludwig works in the areas of stream restoration and watershed management. She conducts research into effective practices for decreasing non-point source pollution in the state’s watersheds.This is a free event but the UT Arboretum Society welcomes donations to help support the organization and its programs. To learn more about the Arboretum Society, go to www.utarboretumsociety. org. For more information on the program, call 483-3571. • FREE AARP DRIVER SAFETY SMART DRIVER COURSE • Everett Senior Center • 9AM • Call (865) 382-5822.

AARP DRIVER SAFETY SMART DRIVER COURSE • Halls Senior Center • 12PM • Call (865) 382-5822.

BEER DINNER FEATURING BELL’S BREWERY MONDAY, FEBRUARY 29TH @ 6 :30 FIRST COURSE PAIRED WITH OARSMAN

five spiced seared quail, lemon confit, roasted sweet potato, sequatchie cove SECOND COURSE PAIRED WITH WINTER WHITE

masa and smith farms pork dumplings, guajillo, fresh queso, pickled green tomatoes, cilantro THIRD COURSE PAIRED WITH AMBER ALE

moulard duck ramen, smoked dashi, radish, soft boiled circle v egg, crispy duck skin FOURTH COURSE PAIRED WITH TWO-HEARTED ALE

quick smoked mitchell farms brisket, oregano, pearled barley, charred red cabbage FIFTH COURSE PAIRED WITH CONSECRATOR DOPPELBOCK AND KALAMAZOO STOUT

brown sugar pound cake, popped sorghum grits, grapefruit caramel, buttermilk crème anglaise

$55 PER PERSON RESERVATIONS AVAILABLE (865) 637-4663

DON’T FORGET, MONDAY IS ALL ABOUT MOONSHINE, TRY ONE OF OUR HAND-CRAFTED SUGARLAND’S MOONSHINE COCKTAILS $5

2200 Cumberland Ave sunspotrestaurant.com 865.637.4663 February 25, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 33

CALENDAR Friday, Feb. 26 AARP DRIVER SAFETY SMART DRIVER COURSE • Everett Senior Center • 9AM • Call (865) 382-5822.

AARP DRIVER SAFETY SMART DRIVER COURSE • Halls Senior Center • 12PM • Call (865) 382-5822.

FREE TRAINING: PROVIDING EXCELLENT CUSTOMER SERVICE • Goodwill Industries • 1:30PM • This free workshop will focus on understanding how to provide exemplary customer service, providing methods to “go above and beyond” the call of duty and provide customer service which will increase customer loyalty and brand value to stores. • FREE Saturday, Feb. 27 IMPROV COMEDY CLASS • The Birdhouse • 10:30AM • A weekly improv comedy class. • FREE INDIGENOUS VIBES STUDIOS AFRICAN DRUM AND DANCE CLASS • Indigenous Vibes Studios • 1:30PM • Our drum and dance classes are specifically designed toward making the drum and dance experience as easy and fun as possible to those with little to no background in drumming and dancing. • $10 INDIGENOUS VIBES STUDIOS AFRICAN DRUM AND DANCE CLASS • Indigenous Vibes Studios • 2:30PM • Our drum and dance classes are specifically designed toward making the drum and dance experience as easy and fun as possible to those with little to no background in drumming and dancing. • $10 BLACK ATTICUS: WRITE OR DIE WORKSHOP • Central United Methodist Church • 1PM • Hip-hop spoken word artist and six-time nationally ranked slam poet Black Atticus will

Thursday, Feb. 25 - Sunday, March 6

teach the “Write or Die” workshop with slam-poetry techniques. Atticus will walk attendees through the thought process and techniques he’s used when coaching other poetry slam teams. To register for the workshop, visit knoxvillewritersguild.org or send your check to KWG Workshops, P.O. Box 10326, Knoxville, TN, 37939-0326. For more information about Atticus, visit his website: blackatticus.wix.com. • $40 Sunday, Feb. 28 CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY MINDFULNESS BASED STRESS REDUCTION • Cancer Support Community • 4:30PM • This 8-week training program, developed by Dr. Jon Kabat- Zinn from the University of Massachusetts Medical School, is a systematic practice that involves focusing attention, relaxing the body and integrating the mind and body to reduce stress. Evidence shows that this program can be effective for controlling anxiety, depression and stress. Must attend the January 10 orientation in order to participate in the series, which runs from January 17-March 6 from 4:30-6:30pm. RSVP. Call 865-546-4661 for more info. All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer.

Monday, Feb. 29 GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 5:30PM • Call 865-5772021 or email yogaway249@gmail.com. Donations accepted.

DIVORCE RECOVERY WORKSHOP • Cokesbury Center • 6:30PM • Divorce can be a life-shattering experience.

Whether it was sudden or was years in the making, we

all need to heal our hearts, rebuild trust and get on with the rest of our lives. You have a choice: you can either go through divorce or you can grow through divorce. The format includes both a large and small group presentations by trained leaders. Attend Divorce Recovery to begin reframing and moving on with your life. Cost for the 14-week course is $75, which includes a book and workbook. • $75 INDIGENOUS VIBES STUDIOS AFRICAN DRUM AND DANCE CLASS • Indigenous Vibes Studios • 5:45PM • Our drum and dance classes are specifically designed toward making the drum and dance experience as easy and fun as possible to those with little to no background in drumming and dancing. • $10 INDIGENOUS VIBES STUDIOS AFRICAN DRUM AND DANCE CLASS • Indigenous Vibes Studios • 6:45PM • Our drum and dance classes are specifically designed toward making the drum and dance experience as easy and fun as possible to those with little to no background in drumming and dancing. • $10 NIA CARDIO-DANCE WORKOUT TECHNIQUE CLASS • Broadway Academy of Performing Arts • 10AM • Email emilybryant24@yahoo.com. Blending dance arts, martial arts, yoga and healing arts in a 55-minute mindful fitness fusion.

Tuesday, March 1 GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 12PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@gmail.com. Donations accepted.

BLOUNT COUNTY LIBRARY BASIC COMPUTER CLASSES •

Blount County Public Library • 2PM • Basic computer classes are offered, free, at the library Jan. 6-March 10. • FREE UT COLLEGE OF LAW FREE INCOME TAX PREPARATION ASSISTANCE • University of Tennessee • 5PM • As part of the IRS Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program, students will offer free tax preparation help to members of the community. The program runs through Thursday, April 14, on Tuesdays and Thursdays in Suite 157 of the College of Law. For more information about the VITA program at UT Law, contact Morgan at 865-974-2492 or rmorgan2@utk.edu. • FREE Wednesday, March 2 INDIGENOUS VIBES STUDIOS AFRICAN DRUM AND DANCE CLASS • Indigenous Vibes Studios • 5:45PM • Our drum and dance classes are specifically designed toward making the drum and dance experience as easy and fun as possible to those with little to no background in drumming and dancing. • $10 INDIGENOUS VIBES STUDIOS AFRICAN DRUM AND DANCE CLASS • Indigenous Vibes Studios • 6:45PM • Our drum and dance classes are specifically designed toward making the drum and dance experience as easy and fun as possible to those with little to no background in drumming and dancing. • $10 UT VOL COURT PITCH COMPETITION • University of Tennessee • 5:15PM • Vol Court is a six-week entrepreneurial speaker series hosted by UT’s Anderson Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation that culminates in a pitch competition. Vol Court will meet from 5:15 to 6:15 T HTEH A E RAT RS T S

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There’s never been a better time to “go public.”

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CLAYTON CENTER FOR THE ARTS on the campus of Maryville College 502 E. Lamar Alexander Pkwy.

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BOX OFFICE: 865-981-8590 ClaytonArtsCenter.com

34

KNOXVILLE MERCURY February 25, 2016

WUOT_Ad_5.5x4.25_WhyWUOT_KnoxMerc.indd 1

9/7/15 9:52 AM

Thursday, Feb. 25 - Sunday, March 6

p.m. every Wednesday beginning Feb. 17 in Room 104 of the Haslam Business Building. Anyone who participates in the March 30 pitch competition must have attended four of the five series meetings.

NIA CARDIO-DANCE WORKOUT TECHNIQUE CLASS • Broadway Academy of Performing Arts • 6PM • Email emilybryant24@yahoo.com. Blending dance arts, martial arts, yoga and healing arts in a 55-minute mindful fitness fusion.

Thursday, March 3 GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 12PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@gmail.com. Donations accepted.

BELLY DANCE LEVELS 1 AND 2 • Knox Dance Worx • 8PM • Call (865) 898-2126 or email alexia@alexia-dance.com. • $12 UT COLLEGE OF LAW FREE INCOME TAX PREPARATION ASSISTANCE • University of Tennessee • 5PM • As part of the IRS Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program, students will offer free tax preparation help to members of the community. The program runs through Thursday, April 14, on Tuesdays and Thursdays in Suite 157 of the College of Law. For more information about the VITA program at UT Law, contact Morgan at 865-974-2492 or rmorgan2@utk.edu. • FREE SEYMOUR FARMER’S MARKET FREE GARDENING WORKSHOPS • Seymour Branch Library • 6:30AM • We will discuss some of the basics such as site planning, when & how much to plant, what varieties grow well here, companion planting. Useful handouts will be provided.

6:30-8:00 pm This program is part of the library’s quarterly special interest series. • FREE SOCIAL MEDIA FOR SENIORS • Blount County Public Library • 7PM • If you would like to be able to keep in touch with your grandchildren on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest, then this is the class for you. Jennifer Spriko will be teaching this social media class in Dorothy Herron Room A. • FREE

MEETINGS

Thursday, Feb. 25 SCRUFFY CITY ORCHESTRA • First Baptist Church • 7PM • A new venue for musicians from the greater Knoxville metropolitan area, Scruffy City Orchestra, kicks off with regular rehearsals on Thursdays beginning January 28th from 7:00 until 9:00 at First Baptist Church on Main Street.

Conductors are Matt Wilkinson and Ace Edewards.

Prospective members, especially string players, are encouraged to contact Alicia Meryweather at ScruffyCityOrchestra@gmail.com for more information. • FREE Saturday, Feb. 27 AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 11AM • Al-Anon’s purpose is to help families and friends of alcoholics recover from the effects of living with the problem drinking of a relative or friend. Visit our local website at farragutalanon.org or email us at FindHope@ Farragutalanon.org. • FREE Sunday, Feb. 28

CALENDAR

SUNDAY ASSEMBLY • The Concourse • 10:30AM • Sunday Assembly is a secular congregation without deity, dogma, or doctrine. Our motto: Live Better, Help Often, Wonder More. Our monthly celebrations feature a different theme every month, with inspiring speakers and lively sing-alongs. To find out more, visit our web page (http:// knoxville-tn.sundayassembly.com) or email saknoxville. info@gmail.com. • FREE Monday, Feb. 29 GAY MEN’S DISCUSSION GROUP • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 7:30PM • We hold facilitated discussions on topics and issues relevant to local gay men in a safe and open environment. Visit gaygroupknoxville.org.

Tuesday, March 1 ATHEISTS SOCIETY OF KNOXVILLE • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 5:30PM • Weekly atheists meetup and happy hour. Come join us for food, drink and great conversation.

Everyone welcome. • FREE

ETC.

Thursday, Feb. 25 COMMUNITY PARTNERS PINTS FOR A PURPOSE • Little River Trading Co. (Maryville) • 5PM • The next Community Partners Pints for a Purpose will benefit Parks and Rec Youth Enrichment Fund. Brought to you by Little River Trading Co, Blount Partnership, and Columbia Sportswear.

Thanks to our sponsors 100% of the nights beer sales proceeds goes to the advocate. Featuring Blue Pants Brewery, Savory and Sweet Food Truck, and music by Cats Away.

Friday, Feb. 26 NOURISH KNOXVILLE WINTER WARMER FUNDRAISING DINNER • First Christian Church • 6:30PM •.Knox Mason owner/chef Matt Gallaher will prepare a four-course dinner to benefit Nourish Knoxville, which, among its many outreach and educational efforts, operates the Market Square Farmers’ Market and publishes the yearly East Tennessee Local Food guide. Each course will highlight ingredients from local farms and will be served with a specially paired selection of beers provided by The Casual Pint—Downtown and Hexagon Brewing Co. A vegetarian dinner option is available by request. For more information, visit NourishKnoxville.org. • $75 FRIENDS OF LITERACY BACHELOR AUCTION • Crowne Plaza • 7:30PM • After searching high and low, Friends of Literacy has discovered Knoxville’s most good looking, well-versed, and multi-talented men. Most importantly these men are single! They’ve put their boyish reservations aside for the good of a greater cause: fighting illiteracy in Knox County. Each bachelor is paired with a unique date package which has been donated by area businesses. Food will be served and there will be a cash bar. Tickets are available by calling 865-549-7007 or online at www.friendsofliteracy.org. Funds raised at the event enables Friends of Literacy to provide free reading classes to the one in 12 adults unable to read or write above a sixth grade level in Knoxville. • $40-$70 KNOX HERITAGE HISTORIC WESTWOOD DOCENT INFORMATION PROGRAM • Knox Heritage • 10AM • Interested in helping share the history of Historic Westwood? Are you or someone you know interested in local history? Do you enjoy learning and working with the public? Are you seeking a rewarding volunteer experience? Consider becoming a docent at Historic Westwood. You just need a love for history and historic

architecture.For more information and to RSVP to attend this informational session, please email Hollie Cook at hcook@knoxheritage.org. For more information visit www.knoxheritage.org. • FREE Saturday, Feb. 27 BEARDSLEY FARM COMMUNITY WORK DAY AND ANNUAL SEED SWAP • CAC Beardsley Community Farm • 12PM • From 12:00PM to 3:00PM, volunteer with fellow community members as we get ready for the spring! We’ll also have a farm tour at noon for those who are new to Beardsley Farm.

Dress ready to work outside with warm clothes, sturdy shoes and a water bottle. From 3:00PM to 5:00PM, after the workday, join us for a Seed Swap. Come on out to share rare heirloom seeds while trading for new seeds while talking up your favorite gardening tricks and learning more from attendees. Call 865.546.8446 or email us at beardsleyfarm@gmail.com. • FREE FOUNTAIN CITY ART CENTER SADIE HAWKINS DAY DINNER AND DANCE • Fountain City Art Center • 6PM • Sadie Hawkins Day comes only once every four years in February when we have one extra day. According to the Sadie Hawkins original idea, it is a time when the ladies are encouraged to ask someone to the dance. However, anyone can attend and just have a great time. Guests are encouraged to put on your most country/hillbilly attire. If you’d like to help, let us know: fcartcenter@knology.net or (865)357-2787. Reservations and prepaid tickets are required for the event. • $35 THE TRAVELING BAZAAR • Elizabeth Claire’s • 9AM • Hand-picked high-quality vendors selling arts, crafts, handmade items, clothing, and antiques. • FREE BLOUNT COUNTY FRIENDS OF THE LIBRARY USED BOOK SALE • Blount County Public Library • 9AM • Mysteries, romance novels, Christian books, children’s books, cookbooks, DVDs, CDs, and more. • FREE Tuesday, March 1 THE ORCHIDS AWARDS • The Standard • 6PM • The Orchids Awards have been presented to Knoxville and Knox County’s most beautiful properties since 1979. Join us this year at a new location to celebrate the people who are beautifying our dynamic city. Enjoy dinner, beer and wine, a silent auction, music, and merriment. • $85

Send your events to calendar@knoxmercury.com

February 25, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 35

OUTDOORS

Out side Insider

CALDERWOOD LAKE WATTS BAR LAKE

Put-In Points

less than a mile, look for Old Johnston Valley Road on your left. It’s 4 or 5 miles to the put-in.

Introducing a new column on how to explore our great outdoors. This week: where to paddle

BY KIM TREVATHAN

Y

ou’ve got a boat and a paddle and a yearning to explore, but you’re not sure where to put in, how far to paddle, what to look for, and what to look out for. What follows are some flatwater destinations for short, out-and-back paddles that don’t require a shuttle.

and Maude Moore’s cave.

How to get there: From Island Home Avenue, veer left onto Maplewood Drive, which turns into Spence Place. This will take you across a small bridge onto the island. Look for the boat ramp on your right.

Parkway and head northeast. Take the first left (Emory Church Road). You’ll cross Sinking Creek. Emory Church Road will veer left under the parkway and turn into Fox Road. Look for the marina on your left about a half-mile from the parkway.

FORT LOUDOUN LAKE/THE TENNESSEE RIVER

West Knoxville may not be the first place you think of for peace on the water, but if you go early morning or during the week, you can avoid the big boat traffic and paddle to some pockets of wilderness that have survived sprawl so far. Put in at Fox Marina and you’ve got a paddle of a couple of miles before you pass under the Pellissippi Parkway bridge into the shelter of Sinking Creek.

Paddle under Emory Church Road (a low, narrow passage) and on around a bend to a rock wall and a spring, accessible at summer pool. Have your camera ready for great blue heron photo opportunities; they roost there.

How to get there: Take the Westland Drive exit off Pellissippi

WATTS BAR LAKE

In the heart of Knoxville’s Urban Wilderness, on an island with an air strip, you can put in at an intimate little ramp lined with trees that form a canopy above you. This is Dickinson Island, just downstream from Ijams Nature Center. On out and back excursions, I like to paddle upstream first and then float back down to the put-in. Here, going upstream takes you up a narrow chute between Ijams and Dickinson Island. When you get just past little Otter Island, about a half-mile paddle against the current, you’re at the main channel of the Tennessee River. If you keep going upstream here, you get a unique perspective of Ijams’ boardwalk 36

KNOXVILLE MERCURY February 25, 2016

Photos by Kim Travathan

HIWASSEE ISLAND

My dog Norm and I visited upper Watts Bar Lake in the canoe one foggy morning and came upon a frenzy of wildlife activity: deer, beaver, horses (not wild), and multiple species of waterfowl including great blue heron, geese, ducks, gulls, cormorants, an eagle, and songbirds. We put in at Johnston Valley Creek boat ramp and paddled across the main channel to the high bluffs, heading upstream to make a 3- or 4-mile loop around marshy Huffine Island.

How to get there: Take the Gallaher Road exit off of I-40 West.

Travel south on Gallaher Road (326) and take a right on Highway 70. In

CHICKAMAUGA LAKE

To put in on Chickamauga Lake near Hiwassee Island, you’ve got a drive of a couple of hours from Knoxville, but it’s well worth it. Drew Crain, his son Jared and I put in on a warm December day at Blythe Ferry. Not only did we see the famous sandhill cranes but also osprey, hawks, ducks, and geese. (Oh yeah, and pelicans.) In Tennessee. According to Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, the sanctuary proper is closed from Nov. 15 through February, meaning you can’t paddle around the entire island, but you can skirt it on the main channel of the Tennessee River.

How to get there: Go south through Dayton on Highway 27. Turn left on Highway 60 and then left on Blythes Ferry Road.

THE LITTLE TENNESSEE RIVER SYSTEM: TELLICO, CHILHOWEE, AND CALDERWOOD LAKES

My favorite place to put in on Tellico Lake is Harrison Branch, off Highway 129 just a couple of miles downstream of Chilhowee Dam. There are options here. You can paddle straight across past the upstream tip of the mostly submerged island that was once the

OUTDOORS Cherokee village, Citico. Across the channel you confront a variety of openings that lead you into Citico Creek proper and the Cherokee National Forest. Or, depending on how much water is being discharged, you can go upstream toward the dam and paddle past a marsh and into the mouth Mulberry Creek, both on upstream right within sight of the dam.

You can also paddle downstream from Harrison Branch and turn into Fourmile Creek, a trip Norm and I once made after dark.

How to get to Harrison Branch: Take 129/411 south out of Maryville.

You’ll pass a Walmart on your left in Fairview. Go through a light or two until you come to a stoplight at a gas station. Take a left there and stay on 129 for several miles. You’ll go through Punkin Center and see a turnoff for Highway 72 on your right.

Stay on 129. You’ll climb a hill with sharp curves. Slow down on the descent because the turnoff for Harrison Branch is approaching, just after you break through the trees on your right.

Further up the Little Tennessee River system is Chilhowee Lake, inaccessible at this writing because of a drawdown to repair the dam. When the lake is raised again, Abrams Creek and Tabcat Creek are great places to paddle with easy access near the mouth of each of them.

Calderwood, the next lake up, sees very little boat traffic and has only one put-in that I know about, at Magazine Branch, where you can also camp. Once I saw a couple in a wooden canoe who had camped there the night before and saw a bear swimming across the lake early that morning. When the water’s at the right level you can paddle through an old railroad tunnel that Little River Trading Company’s Greg Rowe led me through one summer.

How to get to Calderwood Lake: Keep going on Highway 129 past Chilhowee Lake and over what is known as the Tail of the Dragon, a curvy road popular with motorcycle and sports cars enthusiasts. You’ll descend into North Carolina and go past the

West Knoxville may not be the first place you think of for peace on the water, but you can avoid the big boat traffic.

town to trail

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turnoff for Highway 28. Stay on 129.

You’ll see Cheoah Dam on your left. At the bottom of the hill, the road will turn sharply to the left and cross the Cheoah River. Before you cross the bridge, there’s a turn to the right that takes you down to Magazine Branch’s boat ramp.

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THE CLINCH RIVER

If you like the oddity and quiet isolation of paddling in fog, try the Clinch in the summertime. For an easy out-and-back paddle, put in at the boat ramp at Dismal Creek, which is upstream of Clinton, and in the crook of Eagle Bend.

From there you can paddle upstream a couple of miles to Hinds Creek and go up it quite a ways. In the fog, you will hear the traffic on nearby Highway 61 long before you see the bridge.

How to get there: From Clinton Highway (25W), go through Claxton and look for East Wolf Valley Road on your right. A couple of miles down this road, look for Mountain View Road on your left. The boat ramp is about a half mile away.

I’m leaving plenty out, such as the Little River, the Holston, and the French Broad—each better suited for shuttles—but the more I write, the more places come to mind. (Go to knoxmercury.com for the Powell River.) It’s time to close the laptop and load the boat. ◆ Outside Insider provides useful info on how to explore the great outdoors in the Knoxville area. He is the author of Liminal Zones: Where Lakes End and Rivers Begin (University of Tennessee Press, 2013) February 25, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 37

’BYE

R estless Nat ive

The Aura of Pop-Skull Back when moonshine was still illegal—and more fun

BY CHRIS WOHLWEND

T

hese days, at least in Tennessee, the scenery-clotting billboards encountered on any drive include ads touting now-legal moonshine. The fiery drink’s legitimization was quickly seized upon by those who saw the potential for sales. And sales, of course, are what billboards are all about.

Well, to my generation, legalization has brought a serious dilution to moonshine’s aura, to its mystique.

And I wonder what Kirby, Walden Creek’s longtime practitioner of illegal distillation of corn, would make of it.

My introduction to Kirby’s product came when I was in college in the late 1960s—though the consumption ended following a couple of encounters.

Actually, the encounters continued, but I refused to drink the stuff after quickly learning why one of moonshine’s nicknames is “pop-skull.”

A co-worker introduced me to ’shine when he and I visited a bootlegger in Vestal late one night. We then returned to his place in Fort Sanders and were soon joined by two UT football players, one an offensive lineman, the other a stalwart of the defensive front.

Both were the size that their

positions demanded. And both were quickly reduced to blubbering fools by the hooch.

I met Kirby a bit later when my friend, his roommate, and the roommate’s girlfriend—Inga for the purposes of this column—made the drive to Wears Valley to Kirby’s place. There, Kirby introduced us to his ritual. We sat outside and shot the bull, Kirby taking a keen interest in Inga. Then we sampled his product, a price was agreed on, and the sale was completed.

As I recall, most of the 40-minute drive back to Fort Sanders was taken up

by Inga complaining about Kirby being a creep, “a disgusting, dirty old drunk.”

Decades later I ran across Kirby again—he showed up as a character in Cormac McCarthy’s Southern Gothic novel, Child of God. He was living on Walden’s Creek and still dispensing moonshine.

Kirby’s name came up again recently when a friend and I, wandering around the hills northeast of Johnson City, noticed one of the moonshine billboards. I told him about Kirby and the trip to Wears Valley.

“Did I ever tell you about my moonshine experience?” he asked. He

BY MATTHEW FOLTZ-GRAY

38

KNOXVILLE MERCURY February 25, 2016

www.thespiritofthestaircase.com

hadn’t, so he did.

“I got a call one afternoon from one of my customers [he’s in sales, describing himself as an ‘iron peddler’]. He wanted me to stop by. So I took a company car and drove over to his office.

“He’s always asking me to run him to this place or that, so I wasn’t surprised when he wanted me to take him ‘a couple of miles’ up the road for a minute.

“Of course, it was about a dozen miles, and it was up this curvy mountain road. We finally pulled off the highway at an old barn and he told me to wait in the car until he yelled to come on up.

“He walked up the hill to the house and went inside. I waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, he stuck his head out the door and yelled for me to come on up.

“As I got close I could hear hillbilly music. When I opened the door, I saw my friend, his buddy and his wife, and a younger woman who, it turned out, was their daughter. The furniture had been pulled back and the owner and his wife were dancing.

“With a ‘you dance, don’t ya?’ inquiry, the daughter grabbed me and I was in the middle of the festivities.

The jar was being passed around, but by then the rest of them were so drunk they didn’t notice that I was faking the drinking.

“After five or six dances, I managed to get my client outside and back to the barn. He then loaded a half-dozen gallon jugs of ’shine into the trunk of my car. Remember, now, this was a company car.

“I headed back to his place, anxious to get shed of both my client and his purchases. Then I noticed a state trooper on my tail.

“When I pointed out that the law was following us my friend stayed calm. ‘Pull into the first driveway you see and turn off your lights,’ he said. It seemed like miles before we came upon a turn-off, but finally we did. The trooper went right on by. “‘See,’ my friend said, ‘You were worried for nothing.’ But I’ll tell you one thing, I haven’t given him any rides since—I don’t care how good a customer he is.” ◆

Decades later I ran across Kirby again— he showed up as a character in Cormac McCarthy’s Southern Gothic novel, Child of God.

’BYE

BY IAN BLACKBURN AND JACK NEELY

CLASSIFIEDS

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February 25, 2016

KNOXVILLE MERCURY 39